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House GOP Morality Crusaders Go After Scientists

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Having failed to find evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood insinuated by doctored videos, a House committee led by anti-abortion Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is ready to start a new campaign targeting individuals engaging in fetal tissue research.

Since July 2015, 20 states have cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing or decided not to pursue the matter. Yesterday, Planned Parenthood affiliates in three states joined a federal lawsuit filed in California against the videographers, alleging fraud, illegal recording, trespassing and invasion of privacy. The videos’ makers have also been indicted in Texas.

Now the committee — called the “Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives” by the conservative representatives behind it — is seeking subpoenas to medical companies to gather the names of medical researchers, graduate students, laboratory technicians, and administrative staff.   [Read more…]

Invisible Disability Project: Ableism And Erasure

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By Dr. Linda Williams and Monica Slabaugh / Invisible Disability Project

A public service message released by CoorDown this week raises questions about how people with Down Syndrome perceive themselves and are perceived by others. The short film is narrated by Anna Rose Rubright, a woman with Down Syndrome. She describes how she sees herself as a daughter, a friend, a fun loving, hardworking, and emotional person with big dreams.

The video ends with Anna asking, “How do you see me?” The short answer: We don’t see you, Anna. You were erased from the film.   [Read more…]

Roger and Norma Cazares: Four Decades of Chicano Activism

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Norma and Roger Cazares are known for their political activism which began while they were both young. They first met each other on a picket line during the Grape Boycott. Chicano politics brought them together and love soon followed.

Last month’s introduction to the activist lives of Norma and Roger provides insight into how they have changed the civic landscape of San Diego. This concluding article fills in more of the details of their commitment to their community and each other.   [Read more…]

With Women’s Rights On the Line, Groups Demand Supreme Court #StoptheSham

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By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

The U.S. Supreme Court, with one vacant seat, heard oral arguments on Wednesday in what is widely believed to be the most consequential reproductive rights case since Roe v. Wade, one which observers warn could dramatically alter abortion access for women across the country.

The case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, questions whether a Texas law that set stringent requirements for abortion clinics, with the intention of forcing the shutdown of women’s health providers, is actually legal. Observers say that a high court ruling on the law could set a binding precedent as similar Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP, laws have beenimplemented by Republican governments in a number of states.   [Read more…]

Get Rid of Your Toxic Teflon

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By Jill Richardson / Otherwords

Teflon, you might have heard, may cause cancer.

The culprit was a toxic, now retired compound called PFOA. Also known as C8, the chemical became the subject of a major lawsuit accusing DuPont — the manufacturer of the popular nonstick coating — of sickening thousands of Americans.

Yet Teflon is still on the market, The Intercept reports, with a secret new active ingredient.   [Read more…]

Is Jerry Brown Involved in the San Onofre Nuclear Plant Shutdown Scandal?

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Nuclear Shutdown News for February 2016

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Last year Nuclear Shutdown News reported on a scandal involving the San Onofre nuclear plant shutdown, and a secret deal that left its ratepayers holding the bag for a multibillion dollar debt for which the public bears no responsibility. This onerous debt will take consumers and their descendants decades to pay off if the powers that be get their way. But the people are fighting back.   [Read more…]

When Does the Violation of Women’s Bodies Become a ‘Red Line’?

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If people divide their understanding of militarized violence into normal and not normal, acceptable and not acceptable, it makes a terrible kind of sense: violence against women has been “normalized.”

By Lauren Wolfe / Common Dreams

Two years ago I was on vacation in Maine when I started getting really, really mad. I’d been working to track sexualized violence in the Syrian war for a long time and had gotten very little response from policy makers despite many meetings with those in our government and the UK’s and at the UN.

Cases piled up, and response remained nil. And now suddenly President Obama was responding—but not to cases of rape, or torture, but to the possible use of chemical weapons. It was his so-called “red line”—the thing that would make him do something.   [Read more…]

Americans Are Being Screwed by Drug Companies

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And It’s Not Obamacare’s Fault

You can blame lobbyists from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry in conjunction with Republican lawmakers who lobbied the Affordable Care Act to death making it in the long run unaffordable and probably untenable. Why? Because there are no cost containment features in the Act. None. Nada. Zippo.

What that means is that the drug companies can raise the prices of drugs 5000% like Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals did for Daraprim without breaking the law. Shkreli’s arrogance, the latest example of which is calling the Congressmen who interrogated him “imbeciles”, has gotten him into much trouble but not for raising the price of a life-saving drug 5000%.   [Read more…]

Vermont Now Ground Zero In Fight to Label Genetically Modified Foods

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Vermont’s mandatory GMO labeling law is set to take place July 1—unless an amendment blocks it.

By Katherine Paul / AlterNet

The late, great political columnist Molly Ivins, who railed relentlessly against money in politics, would be all over the GMO labeling fight. She’d be especially keen to tackle the next battle, set to take place any day now in the U.S. Senate.

On Thursday, February 25, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry will take up a bill introduced last week by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Roberts’ bill aims to establish a voluntary labeling plan that would block Vermont from enacting its mandatory GMO labeling law on July 1.   [Read more…]

Human Activity Ushers in New Geologic Epoch

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(And it’s not very pretty.)

By mid-twentieth century, humans had altered the Earth to such an extent as to mark the start of a new geologic epoch named the Anthropocene, concluded an international consortium of researchers in a January issue of the preeminent journal Science.

Scientists divide Earth’s 4.5 billion year history into so-called epochs or time units based on major shifts in the composition and state of the planet as recorded in distinct stratifications in rocks, sediments and glacier ice. Previous transitions from one geologic epoch to the next were triggered by either cyclical drivers of climate change, like variations in the Earth’s orbit or solar radiation, or irregular events like volcanic eruptions. The most recent epoch for example, the Holocene, spanned ~12,000 years and was ushered in by a period of interglacial global warming.   [Read more…]

Two Los Angeles Cops Charged With Raping Multiple Women Over Years

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Veterans of the force allegedly targeted victims who were most unlikely to report or be believed.

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

According to a statement released yesterday by Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey, some of the assaults took place in the officers’ patrol car, and nearly all of the alleged assaults were carried out while the cops were on duty.

James Nichols, a 15-year veteran of the force, and Luis Valenzuela, on the force for 18 years, face multiple charges, including “forcible rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation under color of authority and oral copulation by force.” Valenzuela is also being charged with assault with a firearm for pointing a gun at one of the women.

The four alleged victims, who range in age from 19 to 34, all told investigators similar stories of sexual assault by the officers. Citing information contained in the arrest warrant, the Los Angeles Times reports the women, often after being threatened with jail, were taken by car to desolate areas where they were forced to perform sex acts on one officer while the other “kept watch.”   [Read more…]

Scalia Death Could Impact El Cajon Anti-Abortion Clinic Case

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By East County News Service

The East County Pregnancy Care Clinic in El Cajon is among the plaintiffs in a case set for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether or not the state of California can require “crisis pregnancy clinics” established by religious or other anti-abortion groups to post notices informing low-income women patients of their rights to obtain free or low-cost abortion, contraception and pre-natal care through public programs—including a phone number to call.

The clinics have lost in court three times, most recently in early February. They have vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia means the case could deadlock, in which case the lower court’s ruling against the clinics would stand.   [Read more…]

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