On behalf of the Media Alliance, the NY Civil Liberties Union is suing the City of Troy and Public Works Commissioner Robert Mirch for shutting down a local arts and media center on purported code violations in March 2008 after a controversial art exhibit opened there.
The lawsuit maintains that Mirch used his official powers to have the building closed, violating the Media Alliance’s First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly, and its due process and equal protection rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments.

A hundred single payer universal health care advocates rallied in the rain at the state Capitol as part of a national week of action to make healthcare a human right in America. (www.healthcare-now.org. We are fed up with the health insurance we have, fed up with health insurance we can't afford, fed up with the insurance that doesn't cover the care we need and completely fed up with the fact that the top insurance company executive took home $24 million in 2008. Also national releases from Health Care-Now and Green Party of US.

Back in December the Obama-Biden transition team organized thousands of “Health Care Community Discussions.” The President-elect (with Tom Daschle) issued a call for “health care reform that comes from the ground up.” As the community meetings occurred, PNHP received a flood of reports from participants that single payer was the unanimous recommendation from hundreds of gatherings. The transition team report blamed the popularity of single payer on “encouragement by advocacy groups,” characterized the proposal as “radical change” and devoted about one solitary page in a 122-page document, enough to dismiss single payer proposal and its advocates. So much for health reform that comes from the ground up.

One of the most comprehensive pieces of energy and climate legislation ever drafted by members of the U.S. Congress has finally been introduced by Cong. Waxman and Markey. Unfortunately, their "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 stinks. Their bill stinks. 1) It won't protect the poor from price-hikes as the price of carbon is slowly internalized into our energy bills, but will protect polluting industries by allowing them free pollution permits; 2) It opens the door to fraud and shell games instead of real climate action by setting up a huge carbon derivatives market; 3) It makes a mockery of our common understanding of "renewable energy," favoring dirty smokestacks, including garbage incineration, over truly clean, renewable energy.

Doctors and other advocates of truly universal healthcare for all (the same health care for "the people living in the park, and the people living on Park Avenue") were arrested on Tuesday, May 5th, for demanding that the Single-Payer option have a seat at the table of the "No We Can't" administration's Senate Finance Committee health care reform hearing. There were 15 seats at the table secured solely for lobbyists seeking to protect and preserve a really sick Profit-Care system, being the corporate government's carefully selected expert "Health Care Reform" panel... not even one expert allowed at that table to represent We, The People's choice... Single-Payer.

Evidence is mounting that the source of the swine ful is a huge Smithfield pig farm in Mexico where the first victims live. In 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia, a tributary that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The company, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dumped hog waste into the river. After NAFTA passed, they moved their operation to Mexico. Clouds of flies emanate from the rusty lagoons where the Carroll Ranches business tosses the fecal wastes of its pig farms, and the open-air contamination is already generating an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town of La Gloria. Five-year-old Edgar Hernández, a La Gloria child who contracted the first case of identified “swine flu” in February, has been dubbed by the international media as “patient zero."

We are being robbed big-time, but you can't say we haven't been warned. Not after the release Tuesday of a scathing report by the Treasury Department's special inspector general, who charged that the aptly named Troubled Asset Relief Fund bailout program is rife with mismanagement and potential for fraud. The IG's office already has opened 20 criminal fraud investigations into the $700 billion program, which is now well on its way to a $3 trillion obligation, and the IG predicts many more are coming. Meanwhile, William Greider ask is Obama Strong Enough to Stand Up to the Titans of Finance.

The Green Party of New York State said today the Democratic leaders at the State Capitol and in DC still fail to support the radical measures needed to deal with climate change, energy and other key environmental issues. Climate change is worsening at a much more rapid rate than scientists predicted even a few years ago. The proposals being pushed by Obama and Paterson might have helped if they have been implemented 15 years ago under Clinton but they fall far short of what is needed today.

In the streets, on the campuses and on Capitol Hill, the anti-war movement is no longer moving anywhere. It has been crippled by the Obama Effect, the deep and wide delusion that imperialism with a Black face is somehow – something else. When a movement disbands itself without coming even close to achieving its objective, that is a defeat.

Single payer health care has the greatest support among Americans as the way to provide universal health care. Outside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the majority of doctors, nurses, small businesses, health economists, and the majority of the American people – according to recent polls – want a Canadian-style, single payer, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital, national health insurance system. Inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the corrupt elite will have none of it. In addition to the normal suspects, AARP, HCAN (Citizen Action), Families USA and Barack Obama are out to kill single payer health care.

Join farmworkers and allies from across the state in our State Capital on May 12th as we send a clear message that all New Yorkers deserve respect, equality, and recognition for their contributions. The Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867/S.2247) has been introduced by Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan in the assembly. Senator Onorato is joined by Senator Breslin as co-prime sponsor of the bill in the Senate. The labor protections that New York affords to other employees in the state such as workers' compensation, disability coverage, a day of rest, overtime and unemployment insurance should apply equally to farm workers.

The media just doesn't seem to be able to give adequate coverage to health care reform. They do a good job with providing stories about how individuals are impacted by a lack of health care coverage or about progress in confronting a particular disease. But they can't seem to do evidence based analysis of health care reform proposals. So they cover the politics of national health care reform - will a public option model be presented as an alternative? - without bothering to analyze whether the reform will actually work. So they keep on reporting that yet another state has taken a groundbreaking step to enact universal health care - without figuring out or reporting that all these reforms ultimately end in failure for the same reason time after time. Namely, that they never confront the insurance industry and their impact upon health care costs.