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Ask Umbra on big families

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I have recently become a grandmother. (Eek! Doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that I made the decision to have a child.) Though I had just one child, my daughter is pregnant again. She married a guy with seven sibs, and they want to have […]

Big business’s hidden hand in the smear job on Van Jones

If you thought the targeting of Van Jones for vilification by the right was about his race, his youthful flirtation with socialism, or a petition he signed about the 9/11 attacks, you’d only be a little bit right. And if you think it was about the Color of Change campaign against Glenn Beck’s show on […]

Fox News blurts out agenda: With Jones down, stop cap-and-trade

Having taken Van Jones down, the job destroyers and climate destroyers of the right wing most certainly smell blood. Now Phil Kerpen, policy director for Americans for Prosperity, has laid out the right-wing strategy for how “the Van Jones affair could be an important turning point in the Obama administration,” in a piece on FOXNews.com. […]

After Van Jones resignation, Glenn Beck to go after ‘other radicals’

Following Van Jones’ resignation Saturday night, Glenn Beck has released a statement vowing to go after “other radicals in the administration.” What could be scarier than the nation’s clean energy and climate policy being affected by uber-wingnut Glenn Beck. In a January attack on Obama’s energy and environment adviser, Carol Browner, Beck said on his […]

James McWilliams’ over-hyped and undercooked anti-locavore polemic

Cows on pasture: potential solution, or menace to society? What is just food? One might answer: food produced without causing undue ecological damage, food grown under production systems that allow workers and farmers to earn livable wages, food that’s healthy, accessible, and affordable to everyone who eats. To James E. McWilliams, author of the new […]

5 reasons why Van Jones and progressives are better off with Jones out of the White House

The end of Van Jones’ brief career as a White House insider, in the semi-obscure position of special adviser for green jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality, is likely good for Van Jones and very good for progressives. Yes, currently it seems as if Fox News’ Glenn Beck — who spent the past few […]

Sen. Cantwell thinks a U.S.-China climate deal likely at Obama visit

The United States and China are likely to sign a new bilateral agreement to combat climate change during President Barack Obama’s visit to Beijing in November, Washington senator Maria Cantwell said on Friday.

General Electric fights for change from the inside … of a coal industry front group!

All of us who want to see the world changed for the better struggle with whether it is better to fight for that change from the inside or the outside. But you can’t fight for change from inside an organization dedicated to stopping change, like, say, the scandal-ridden front group American Coalition for Clean Coal […]

Can Obama deliver health and energy security with a half (assed) message?

September 6, 2009 Here’s a quiz: 1)  What’s worse from a messaging perspective, “the public option” or “cap-and-trade”? 2) Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says is the benefit of passing a health care reform bill. 3)  Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says happens if we fail to pass the […]

Japan’s new prime minister promises ambitious cuts in CO2 emissions

Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has promised to make ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, months before world leaders meet for crucial climate change talks. Hatoyama, who will take office next week, said Japan would seek to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, but said the target would be contingent […]