TV News LIES

So, now do you believe me? The stock market was rigged.

But now that another news organization has finally gotten off its lazy butt, I’ll tell it again: Under former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, confidential government information was regularly leaked to select people on Wall Street.

By giving confidential information to a roomful of traders, Paulson had to understand he’d influence the price of Fannie and Freddie stock and, by extension, the whole market.

Both measures would require Internet operators to police activity online, and would mandate Internet giants like Google and AOL (the parent company of The Huffington Post and an opponent of the bills) and credit card companies to take down sites that have content deemed to be in violation of copyright rules.

The battle has pitted huge content generators like Disney and the motion picture industry against their online competitors, with each side reportedly spending some $90 million on lobbying efforts.

In a draft report (pdf) released today, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed what many residents of Pavilion, Wyoming have been complaining about for some time now: Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is responsible for polluting the area's drinking water.

Before issuing this report, the EPA had advised residents not to drink their water, because, as MSNBC says, the EPA "said it had found benzene and other hydrocarbons in wells it tested."

A U.S. District Court judge in Portland has drawn a line in the sand between "journalist" and "blogger." And for Crystal Cox, a woman on the latter end of that comparison, the distinction has cost her $2.5 million.

Speaking to Seattle Weekly, Cox says that the judgement could have impacts on bloggers everywhere.

"This should matter to everyone who writes on the Internet," she says.

Firefighters stood by and watched a Tennessee house burn to the ground earlier this week because the homeowners didn't pay the annual subscription fee for fire service.

It's the second time in two years firefighters in the area have watched a house burn because of unpaid fees. Last year, Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family

While the Republicans disparage any thoughts of asking the upper 3% and corporations to pay their fair and equalized share of taxes, they also fight like banshees to prevent the repeal of the 36 billion in tax credits and subsidies to the oil cartels which continue to produce billions and billions and billions and more billions, in net profits.

With both party’s having done their fair share of damage to the economy, jobs and the standard of living for most of America, neither party is too keen on rolling back the unearned and unnecessary financial privileges extended to high dollar corporate campaign donors especially when these funds from the oil conglomerates are so lucrative.

America smashed the record for billion-dollar weather disasters this year with a deadly dozen - and counting.

With an almost biblical onslaught of twisters, floods, snow, drought and wildfire, the U.S. in 2011 has seen more weather catastrophes that caused at least $1 billion in damage than it did in all of the 1980s, even after the dollar figures from back then are adjusted for inflation.

America's unemployed workers brought their message of frustration and despair directly to the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday as they filled the congressional offices of dozens of lawmakers and refused to leave until they met with their elected representatives.

The sit-in style confrontations were the opening salvo of a three-day protest event dubbed "Take Back the Capitol," which is sponsored by a coalition of progressive organizations.