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Rick Perry's Big Health Care "Oops"

I did exactly what the doctor told me to do. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling a bit better. Maybe even a little worse.

Last week, Dr. Michael C. Burgess, tweeted this directive: "Mark your calendars: Rick Perry will join Health Caucus' Thought Leaders Series next Wednesday, December 7 @ 5 p.m."

Texas Governor Rick PerryEager to hear what thought leadership the Texas governor and presidential candidate would be imparting, I marked my calendar as Dr. Burgess prescribed. Imagine my dismay when I learned yesterday morning that Perry would be sharing his thoughts behind closed doors. The media and public, it turns out, had been disinvited.

Denial and Delay Winning the Day in Durban

Amid difficult United Nation climate talks this week in Durban, lead climate change denier -- U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) -- sent a patronizing video message to delegates in South Africa celebrating what he called the "complete collapse" of the movement to fight climate change.

His message comes as delegates work night and day in a last-ditch effort to produce a legally-binding deal to restrict the damage already underway due to the rise of carbon content in the atmosphere. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said earlier in the week that a new international climate pact might be "beyond our reach" given the "great economic troubles" many countries are experiencing.

New York Should Become the First State to Ban Fracking

Adelaide Park Gomer, president of the Park Foundation based in Ithaca, New York, received the Advocacy Award from Common Cause for her work fighting fracking. Ms. Gomer is known as a knowledgeable and passionate defender of independent media, environmental sustainability, and higher education, as well as of democratic and transparent governance.

She and the Park Foundation have been among the staunchest supporters of the antifracking movement in New York, as the gas industry is poised to allow more of this dangerous, dirty, and destructive practice throughout much of the state, should Governor Andrew Cuomo give it the green light-which could happen soon despite the overwhelming evidence that fracking poisons air, water, soil, and food supplies, endangering public health.

We Are Farmer Brown

This is the first in a two-part series by the Center for Media and Democracy's Food Rights Network (FRN) about challenges to local food sovereignty across the United States. This was originally published on AlterNet. Stay tuned for the next installment, coming soon.

More than 150 supporters gathered on the steps of Town Hall in Blue Hill, Maine on Friday, November 18. They protested the State of Maine's and Agriculture Comissioner Walt Whitcomb's lawsuit against local farmer Dan Brown of Gravelwood Farm in Blue Hill. In response to a shout of, "Who is Farmer Brown," the crowd shouted, "We are all Farmer Brown!"

OWS: Real Grassroots vs. Astroturf

Astroturf vs. GrassrootsThe "Occupy Wall Street" movement is providing a real-time case study of the difference between a true grassroots movement and a corporate-backed astroturf movement.

Americans in recent years have been besieged by industry-funded astroturf efforts masquerading as real grassroots movements. One example is the "Hands off my Healthcare" national roadshow, which was backed by the Koch-funded group, Americans for Prosperity. Another is the Tea Party, which got a corporate-sponsored media boost from the Fox News Channel and benefitted from the the efforts of a Sacramento, California-based Republican PR firm, Russo Marsh & Rogers. Astroturf uses manufactured spin and messaging that requires real money for things like media buys, front groups, mass-broadcast faxes, telemarketing-generated petitions, glossy postcards, form letters and talk radio-inspired phone calls.

Insurers Use PR Playbook to Keep Us in the Dark About Health Insurance

If you wonder why the health insurance industry has to set up front groups and secretly funnel cash to industry-funded coalitions to influence public policy, take a look at the most recent results of the Kaiser Family Foundation's (KFF) monthly Health Tracking Poll.

Screaming infantIn its November poll, KFF added a few new survey questions to find out exactly which parts of the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare are the most popular and which are the least popular. Insurers were no doubt annoyed to see that the provision of the law they want most -- the requirement that all of us will have to buy coverage from them if we're not eligible for a public program like Medicare -- continues to be the single most hated part of the law. More than 60 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of that mandate.

ALEC Sparks Uprisings in Wisconsin and Ohio

Harold Schaitberger, President IAFFOn the one-year anniversary of an important American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meeting in Washington D.C., Wisconsin's public safety officers gathered to prepare for the next stage in the fight for labor rights.

Some 250 police and firefighters signed recall petitions, loaded up on maps and assignments and to listened to guest speakers at a "Recall Walker" gathering at Madison's South Central Federation of Labor. Mark Sanders, President of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters, was there to pass the torch and Harold Schaitberger, National President of the International Association of Professional Firefighters (IAFF), was there to reminded the crowd about the critical role ALEC played in the Wisconsin and Ohio uprisings.

Defunct War Strategy Program May Still Overshadow University of Wisconsin-Madison's History of Dissent

Guest post by Steve Horn and Allen Ruff

This article is part 2 of a two-part series on the military's influence in academia. Part 1 ran previously on Truthout.

Once viewed by some as a "rising star" at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, historian Jeremi Suri announced in early May that he was leaving Madison to pursue his fame and fortune at the University of Texas-Austin.

With him went the fortunes of the short-lived and now deceased UW-Madison Grand Strategy Program (GSP), which he founded and headed as one part of a broader network of strategic studies programs currently underway on select campuses elsewhere.

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