Recent reports have highlighted the fact that at least a quarter of the prison population at Chicago’s Cook County Jail suffer from serious mental health illnesses. Speaking to the Chicago Tribune, the new head of the jail noted that out of the jail’s approximately 8,000 detainees, some 1,900 have been identified as suffering from mental illness. Dr. Nneka Jones, a 37-year-old …
Rule By The Corporations: TTIP Corporate Empowerment Act – Paul Craig Roberts
The Transatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships have nothing to do with free trade. “Free trade” is used as a disguise to hide the power these agreements give to corporations to use law suits to overturn sovereign laws of nations that regulate pollution, food safety, GMOs, and minimum wages. The first thing to understand is that these so-called “partnerships” …
ISIS Is The Child Of Chaos, Not Religion By Justin Podur
In the third week of May, ISIS took the city of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria, in two, big, high-profile victories. Though ISIS has constantly been in the news for years now, these two cities seem to return the sense of an unstoppable march of Islamist forces across the Middle East. As the beheadings began almost immediately in …
Israel and the Water Card By Paul R. Pillar
Israel is the object of widespread admiration for its economic and technical accomplishments and the ingenuity that went into them — for being a nation that made the desert bloom. Much of the admiration is quite warranted, with Israeli talent and resourcefulness having not only produced blooms on kibbutzes but also a leading high-tech sector today. The comparisons involved, however, …
Everest Region May Experience 99% Glacier Loss
With continued temperature rise, glacier volume in the Everest region could be reduced between 70% and 99% by 2100. If greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise, glaciers in the Everest region of the Himalayas could experience dramatic change in the decades to come. A team of researchers in Nepal, France and the Netherlands have found Everest glaciers could be very sensitive to future warming, and that sustained …
America Is #1 in Police Killings Among Western Democracies, Yet We’re Only Just Discovering How Bad the Situation Is By Terrell Jermaine Starr
Even before the Washington Post [3] published its startling report this weekend on the astronomically high number of Americans shot and killed by police in the first five months of 2015, the U.S. was already easily number one. Number one among highly advanced western democracies with fully developed economies for police killings of citizens: at least 400 people a year, according to a …
State of Disaster – Robert Reich
As extreme weather marked by tornadoes and flooding continues to sweep across Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has requested – and President Obama has granted – federal help. I don’t begrudge Texas billions of dollars in disaster relief. After all, we’re all part of America. When some of us are in need, we all have a duty to respond. But the …
Why The Privatization Of America’s Police Is Such A Dangerous Trend By Claire Bernish
Though a potent effort to silence dissent is underway in the US, directly doing so would be a flagrant breach of constitutional rights. And so the ostensible explanations for tactically-geared police at peaceful protests and insidious surveillance programs fall under nebulous terms like protecting public safety, keeping the peace or national security. But when Kinder Morgan wanted to push through …
Jeb Bush Speaking at Secret Coal Industry Retreat – Nick Surgey
Jeb Bush is the highest profile speaker at a secretive three-day retreat in Bristol, Virginia, hosted by the CEOs of six coal companies, according to materials for the invitation-only event obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and shared with the Guardian. The event, dubbed the “Coal & Investment Leadership Forum,” which started Sunday and goes through Tuesday, is taking …
These ‘Big 6′ Chemical Companies Now Make 50,000 Different Pesticides – Christine Sarich
At what point can we start calling pesticide makers the true pests that need to be eradicated? At this point the number of pesticides in the world is beyond alarming; it’s (literally) sickening. In the UK, it has been estimated that enough pesticide is used to account for 420g for every woman, man, and child. In the US, the numbers are similar, …