News & Views

Missoula, Montana; Boulder, Colorado; and South Miami, Florida, have all done it, but you know it's really catching on when the Big Apple jumps on board. The New York City Councilvoted Wednesday to get rid of corporate personhood in a growing nationwide backlash against the much-maligned Citizens United ruling.

Over 162,000 people, about 80% of them civilians, were killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, according to new data published by Iraq Body Count to mark the withdrawal of US combat forces. Many more grim details and numbers, including the fact that civilian deaths have not noticeably declined since 2009.

[Editor's note: Iraq Body Count acknowleges that its methodology tends to undercount. The full death count may be higher.]

More here.

The 2012 presidential race officially begins today with the caucuses in Iowa, and we all know what that means …nothing.

The National Defense Authorization Act is not a leap from democracy to tyranny, but it is another major step on a steady and accelerating decade-long march toward a police state. The doomsday clock of our republic just got noticeably closer to midnight, and the fact that almost nobody knows it, simply moves that fatal minute-hand a bit further still.

As we head into a presidential election year, I’d wager a lot the mainstream media will focus their attention on the horse race for the White House and other prime time campaigns. But this is a moment—when we are seeing a real shift in our politics, from Wisconsin to Ohio to Occupy—to be recruiting and supporting what I’d call 99 percenter candidates: those who share the core convictions of Occupy Wall Street and the 99 percent movement.

Most Americans--68 percent--oppose the war against Iraq, according to a November 2011 CNN poll. So it's smart politics for President Obama to take credit for withdrawing U.S. troops.

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tuesday that his country is welcoming all U.S. corporations with open arms as U.S. troops leave at the end of the month.