The Highroad
Hiding worker injuries
According to the latest safety reports, workplace injuries are on the decline in our country. Great! Only ... it’s untrue. Why? Because many burns, cuts, poisonings and other on-the-job injuries are deliberately hidden from America’s Occupational Safety and ...
The spreading plague of antibacterial products
Chances are you have, but don’t know it. These two are antimicrobial chemicals, which might sound like a good thing, except that they disrupt the human body’s normal regulatory processes. Animal studies show, for example, that these triclos can be linked to the ...
GOP to US infrastructure: All fall down
I love groups with the gumption to take on big tasks and do what needs to be done — can-do groups that can, and do. But, uh-oh, here comes The Little Choo-Choo That Couldn’t: the U.S. Congress...
Socialists in the Senate!
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, known as the “White Maned Pontificator,” has recently been spewing a fountain of free-market dogma in the debate over health care reform...
Corporate weasels trying to escape paying for workers’ injuries
When you come across a corporate lobbying group claiming to be pushing “Responsible Alternatives to Such-and-Such,” you can rightly assume that it’s really pushing something totally irresponsible, as well as malicious, self-serving and even disgusting...
Playing Washington’s inside game
Do you know any of the dozen Congress critters who’re on the superpowerful deficit-reduction supercommittee? I don’t mean do you know their names, but do you really know them — know them well enough that they’ll take your call...
Bankers keep running with illegal foreclosures
Two-year-olds often go running around the house too wildly and crash into something. They get an “ouchie” and fall down crying, but they learn from it...
Alec’s legislative bawdy house
Do you know Alec? You probably do, even though you never heard of it. Yes, “it.” Not a person, ALEC is the acronym for a secretive, corporate-funded, state policy front group: American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC’s “exchange” is very straightforward — it ...
Why are we taxpayers subsidizing corporate crime?
Do the crime, do the time,” goes the old saying. Unless of course, the criminals are corporate executives. In those cases, the culprits are practically always given a “Get out of jail free” card...
Two good ideas for banking reform
If either party in Washington were to get serious about reining in Wall Street greedheads, here are two good ideas for achieving that. The first comes from Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont who, ironically, has introduced a bill that is the essence ...
Getting to know the right wing
Time for another edition of the new game that’s sweeping the nation: “Who’s That Right Winger?” An interconnected network of extremely wealthy, far-right-wing individuals are quietly pushing their ideological, corporatist and plutocratic agenda all across America...
