News

Beer Revolution: Protesters Gather to Protest Proposal That Favors MillerCoors at the Expense of Small, Craft Brewers

"This is the Wisconsin revolution, and it's powered by beer!"

John Nichols, associate editor of the Capital Times and Washington correspondent for The Nation, gave a rousing introduction to Friday's "Save Our Craft Beers" rally, held on the State Street side of the Wisconsin state Capitol at 5:00 p.m. Protesters gathered to unite in opposition against a measure added to the budget by the Joint Finance Committee that effectively bans brewers from purchasing wholesale distributors and, according to the Wisconsin Positive Business Alliance, requires new wholesalers and breweries to secure 25 "separate, independent retail customers before a wholesale license can be granted."

Wisconsin Judge Declares Walker’s Collective Bargaining Bill “Null and Void”

On May 26, Wisconsin Judge Maryann Sumi ruled Governor Scott Walker's "budget repair bill," which would eviscerate collective bargaining rights for most public workers in the state, "null and void."

Sumi ruled that lawmakers clearly violated the state's open meetings law in their rush to pass the bill at the height of the capitol protests, and that the public interest in the enforcement of the state's open records law outweighed the public interest in sustaining legislative action.

Move Over Machiavelli: Wisconsin GOP Kills Public Financing to Pay for Voter Suppression

protestYou are a new Governor pursuing a radical, budget-slashing agenda. In your spare time, you work to pass the most restrictive Voter ID law in the nation, which turns out to be quite costly. What to do? Here is an idea. To pay for your voter suppression efforts, why not rob public financing for elections, a system designed to encourage a diversity of candidates and a flourishing of democracy?

CMD Opposes Effort to Gut Whistleblower Protections

The Center for Media and Democracy, Common Cause, the AFL-CIO, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen and other organizations have signed onto a letter to members of Congress opposing a draft bill by Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) that would weaken whistleblower protection and award programs at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC). Grimm's bill seeks to strip newly-enacted protections for whistleblowers who face retaliation for contacting enforcement agencies. It would also remove incentives for corporate insiders to inform regulators about wrongdoing, hamstring enforcement at the SEC and CTFC and give lawbreaking financial firms a way to escape accountability for their actions. The programs Grimm's bill is trying to gut are based on America’s most effective anti-corruption statute: the False Claims Act, which has returned more than $27 billion taxpayer dollars since 1987. The programs were created under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to help the SEC and CTFC monitor securities and commodities markets and help avert another Wall Street collapse. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFTC and the SEC can compensate whistleblowers whose disclosures lead to enforcement actions with penalties of $1 million or more. Such programs help  protect taxpayers by encouraging insiders with critical knowledge of large-scale corporate misconduct to come forward and report it. You can read the letter and see all the groups who have signed onto to it here (pdf).

Insurers Blame Americans; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Ducks Questions

Blue Cross Blue Shield of TNThe reaction of health insurers to the Obama administration's requirement that they start justifying rate increases of 10 percent or more was quick and predictable: "Not fair!"

The PR and lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) absolved the industry of any responsibility for constantly rising premiums and pointed the finger of blame at just about everyone else. The real culprits, AHIP president Karen Ignagni insisted, are greedy doctors and hospitals, state legislators who make insurers provide coverage for an overly broad range of illnesses, and, of course, irresponsible American citizens, especially healthy young people who decide not to buy insurance.

Why Is The Monterey Bay Aquarium Greenwashing Sewage Sludge?

Monterey Bay AquariumToday, the nation's major sustainable food writers and bloggers will converge on Monterey, California for an incredible, invitation-only sustainable food conference. The event, Monterey Bay Aquarium's Cooking for Solutions, which those who attend say is spectacular, has a new sponsor this year: Kellogg Garden Products. Yes, that Kellogg Garden Products. The very same company that has contaminated "organic" school gardens in Los Angeles with sewage sludge. The company's Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathy Kellogg Johnson, has a knack for befriending "green" organizations and using them to promote her toxic, misleadingly-labeled products to unsuspecting gardeners. In this case, she's listed as a "Silver Sponsor." How much did her company pay to give her such a nice platform, sitting on a panel with Grist's sustainable food writer, Tom Philpott, and telling an all-media audience about the sustainability of Kellogg Garden Products?

Harold Camping's Global Apocalypse PR Campaign

End of the WorldThe world is scheduled to end on May 21, 2011. At least that's the hysteria being spread by Harold Camping, the 89 year-old fundamentalist Christian radio preacher and president of Family Radio, Inc., based in Oakland, California.

Camping claims to have calculated that on May 21, Jesus Christ will return to Earth and save his true believers. The unsaved will be victimized, he says, by a world-wide earthquake that will "throw open all graves." The "saved" will then rise up to heaven and the unsaved will be left to rot. A subsequent, massive tsunami will wreak five months of havoc upon those remaining on Earth until finally the entire Universe blows up on October 21, 2011, according to Camping.

Two signs that indicate the end is near, according to Camping's website, are the arrival of same-sex marriage and Israel gaining nationhood in 1948.

Robin Hood Storms Chase Castle and M&I Execs Get Piggish

On Tuesday, the shareholders of Marshall and Ilsley (M&I) Bank of Wisconsin "voted" to give $71 million in bonuses to failed executives as part of an acquisition deal. "Voted" may not be the right word, since CEO Mark Furlong opened and closed the meeting within the span of five minutes, allowing no discussion and no questions from the dozen or so shareholders in the room. Furlong has apparently learned Robert's Rules of Order from his friend Governor Scott Walker and the rest of the gang in the Wisconsin Capitol.

Pages

Subscribe to News