Dan Rather

Appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday morning, legendary newsman Dan Rather took a few shots at the political coverage of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, accusing reporters of failing to ask follow-up questions and their bosses of essentially partnering with him to boost their ratings.

“So many journalists have had to recalibrate their expectations and their understanding of politics,” host Brian Stelter asked. “What has disappointed you in the media coverage of this [Trump’s] campaign?”

“What has disappointed me most is the lack of tough questions and the tough follow-up questions,” replied Rather.

Pressed by Stelter, “You don’t think he’s been asked tough questions?” Rather said reporters let Trump slide around giving direct answers.

“Well, he handles tough questions by doing the old side shuffle most of the time. And with rare exceptions — I give Jake Tapper credit here on CNN — with rare exceptions, nobody bores in and keeps asking the tough question,” the former 60 Minutes host stated. “The other thing that’s disappointed me a bit, and I do think […]

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What happens when a private company with a long history of producing some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet and now produces our food starts facing public pressure from a growing national grassroots movement to label their products to conform with basic principles of democracy and transparency?

Well, if the company in question is Monsanto, then you take a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook and hatch a secret plan to enlist public university scientists to bury the potential harm of your genetically engineered crops by whitewashing negative studies and systematically demonizing your opponents in the media to mislead elected officials and the American public about the safety of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and their accompanying toxic pesticides.

Here’s a little history lesson, in the 1940s, tobacco companies ran ads with doctors proclaiming smoking cigarettes were perfectly safe. In 1946, the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company ran a now infamous campaign called “More Doctors” recommend Camels after “surveying” more than 113,597 doctors “from every branch of medicine.” In reality, the tobacco company’s advertising […]

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Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station, on the coast of California.
Credit: Doc Searls/Flickr

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s announcement yesterday that it would shutter California’s last nuclear plant and replace the power with energy efficiency and renewable energy was the result of a confluence of progressive state policies, CEO Anthony Earley said.

The closure of Diablo Canyon’s two nuclear reactors on California’s central coast in 2024 and 2025 will likely mean the end of nuclear power in the state, due to an existing state moratorium on new plants until the problem of radioactive waste is dealt with permanently.

The agreement came about through negotiations with labor unions and environmental groups, whose leaders said it could serve as a model for other states seeking to shut down nuclear or fossil-fueled plants.

But Early noted that California’s unique suite of policies formed the basis for the deal.

He cited last year’s passage of S.B. 350, a bill that raised the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 50 percent and […]

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Grotesque over-crowding is commonplace in America’s gulag.
Credit: sf.newleaderscouncil.org

Chapter 1: “Inmates Run This Bitch”

Have you ever had a riot?” I ask a recruiter from a prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
“The last riot we had was two years ago,” he says over the phone.
“Yeah, but that was with the Puerto Ricans!” says a woman’s voice, cutting in. “We got rid of them.”
“When can you start?” the man asks.
I tell him I need to think it over.

I take a breath. Am I really going to become a prison guard? Now that it might actually happen, it feels scary and a bit extreme.

I started applying for jobs in private prisons because I wanted to see the inner workings of an industry that holds 131,000 of the nation’s 1.6 million prisoners. As a journalist, […]

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