In 1988, the typical American adult was 40 years old, white and married, with a high school diploma. If he was a man, he probably worked full time. If she was a woman, she probably didn’t.

Twenty-five years later, Americans are older, more diverse and more educated. We are less likely to be married and more likely to live alone. Work is divided more evenly between the sexes. One thing that hasn’t changed? The income of the median U.S. household is still just under $52,000.

The government’s release last week of income and poverty data for 2013 brought renewed attention to the apparent stagnation of the American middle class – not just since the financial crisis hit six years ago this month, but for much of the decade that preceded the crash. The report showed that the economic recovery has yet to translate into higher incomes for the typical American family. After adjusting for inflation, U.S. median household income is still 8 percent lower than it was before the recession, 9 percent lower than at its peak in 1999, and essentially unchanged since […]

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Published just this month in the International Journal of Toxicology, the study ‘Glyphosate Commercial Formulation Causes Cytotoxicity, Oxidative Effects, and Apoptosis on Human Cells: Differences With its Active Ingredient,” proposes what most of us have already surmised: Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide du jour – RoundUp – is utterly killing us. What’s more – it kills us in much smaller servings than the Agriculture industry is dishing out in its common GMO and pesticide spraying practices, and it is made stronger by the additional chemicals used in the RoundUp formula.

‘Aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), and a glyphosate formulation (G formulation) were examined in HepG2 cell line, at dilution levels far below agricultural recommendations” and they are causing toxic effects on the human genome. It is the adjuvants in RoundUp working together with the glyphosate which really causes the problem.

‘The glyphosate formulation studied also triggered two ‘death proteins’ in human cells known as caspase 3/7, inducing pathways that activate programmed cell death (apoptosis), a clear sign of significant toxicity.”

As many scientists have suspected, glyphosate does not reveal its true toxicity alone – but works in tandem with the other chemicals in RoundUp so that the levels of toxicity on human cells […]

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On Monday, Google announced that it was cutting ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, the powerful Koch-backed conservative group that, among other things, opposes government action to combat climate change. ‘Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren,” Google’s Eric Schmidt said on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show, adding for good measure: ‘And so we should not be aligned with such people-they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

The conservative group, which has been steadfast in its opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb carbon emissions, was quick to shake off Google’s high-profile defection, attributing it to ‘public pressure from left-leaning individuals and organizations who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial.” Take a closer look at ALEC’s priorities, though, and there’s evidence that the group’s commitment to ‘free market policy perspectives” is less resolute than its climate denialism. Consider, for instance, ALEC’s push to squash the nascent rooftop solar industry.

ALEC and its allies are currently lobbying state lawmakers and regulatory commissioners to rewrite industry rules regarding solar panels. The apparent goal: to ensure that customers with rooftop panels pay more each month and to […]

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Gary Osen, an attorney for the plaintiffs in a case against Jordan-based Arab Bank, talks with reporters outside federal court in the Brooklyn in August. (AP)

In what has the potential to be one of the most important verdicts in the era of modern terrorism, a federal jury has found the Arab Bank of Jordan liable for “knowingly supporting terrorism efforts” relating to 24 attacks by the terrorist group Hamas that took place during the Second Intifada.

The suit was filed under the American Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows for Americans or their families to sue if they are harmed in acts of terrorism abroad. In the case of the roughly 300 plaintiffs, they sought damages from the Arab Bank, in part, for hosting accounts for members of Hamas.

Here’s how Armin Rosen at Business Insider summed up the meaning of the case:

The decision sets a significant precedent. The US Treasury Department […]

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WASHINGTON — In politics, it is sometimes better to be lucky than good. Republicans and Democrats, and groups sympathetic to both, spend millions on sophisticated technology to gain an advantage.

They do it to exploit vulnerabilities and to make their own information secure. But sometimes a simple coding mistake can lay bare documents and data that were supposed to be concealed from the prying eyes of the public.

Such an error by the Republican Governors Association recently resulted in the disclosure of exactly the kind of information that political committees given tax-exempt status normally keep secret, namely their corporate donors and the size of their checks. That set off something of an online search war between the association and a Washington watchdog group that spilled other documents, Democratic and Republican, into the open.

The documents, many of which the Republican officials have since removed from their website, showed that an A-to-Z of America’s most prominent companies, from Aetna to Walmart, had poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of Republican governors since 2008. One document listed 17 corporate ‘members” of the governors association’s secretive 501(c)(4), the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which is allowed to shield its supporters from the public.
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