Pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly (LLY), BB&T Bank (BBT), and PepsiCo (PEP) have all confirmed that they will not continue funding the Heartland Institute, joining GM, State Farm, and numerous other leading corporations in deserting an organization that produces radical attacks on climate science and scientists. The defections come aftergrowing pressure from corporate accountability and environmental groups, which have collected more than 150,000 signatures on a petition saying:
"All corporations should immediately pull their funding from the Heartland Institute in light of Heartland's ongoing and extreme support of climate change denial."
The coalition of groups — Forecast the Facts, the Sierra Club,350.org, SumOfUs, the League of Conservation Voters, and Greenpeace — plans to continue pressuring Heartland's remaining sponsors, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Comcast.
Statements From Coalition Members
"More than 100,000 Americans are telling corporations to stop polluting our democracy by supporting organizations like the Heartland Institute," said Daniel Souweine, Campaign Director of Forecast the Facts. "Heartland's remaining funders would be wise to heed their calls. Heartland's radical agenda stains the reputation of any business that wants to be considered a responsible corporate citizen."
"Corporate funders have been jumping ship from theHeartland Institute for years. Heartland's anti climate science agenda was too extreme even for Exxon, which stopped funding Heartland and other front groups in 2007 'whose position on climate change could divert attention' from the discussion of responsible energy production," said Kert Davies, Greenpeace Research Director, "Heartland's desperate billboard stunt is just the most recent offense, and its few remaining funders should understand that there will be more to come."
###
Margaret and Helen: Mitt Happens
###
Drinky McStupid found guilty of war crimes.
###
I am tired of listening to the political peril angle on same sex marriage and I have never understood why every idiot in the world gets to weigh in on The Black Church and President Obama while Mormons and Mitt Romney are off-limits, so here's Wonkette:
Get out your Purple Heart bandages, because it is once again time to remind the American people thatThe Troops are a bunch of lazy, cowardly, treasonous, unpatriotic, un-American, Kenyan-Socialist-Communist whiners.
If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population.
The fuck you say! It is almost like soldiers are expressing anger at the toll of a decade of war, questioning the legitimacy of George W. Bush's Iraq invasion, and worrying that the surge in Afghanistan won't make a difference in the long run! (And also: don't really have a hard-on for #WARRING with Iran!)
###
Really depressing read, if you're a person who may have a direct and personal interest in any of the huge questions that are before the Supreme Court:
Before retiring from the Supreme Court in 2009, liberal Justice David Souter penned a dissent so critical of the court's conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts went to great lengths to prevent it from being published. That's one of the clams from The New Yorker's epic dissection of the 2010 Supreme Court Decision Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission. Taking us inside the legal wranglings of the high-profile case, staff writer Jeffrey Toobin describes a dissent Souter wrote at the end of his tenure at the Supreme Court. The argument, which remains unpublished, accused Roberts of engineering the outcome of the Citizens United case:
Souter wrote a dissent that aired some of the Court's dirty laundry. By definition, dissents challenge the legal conclusions of the majority, but Souter accused the Chief Justice of violating the Court's own procedures to engineer the result he wanted.
Roberts didn't mind spirited disagreement on the merits of any case, but Souter's attack—an extraordinary, bridge-burning farewell to the Court—could damage the Court's credibility. So the Chief came up with a strategically ingenious maneuver.
Toobin goes on to explain that Roberts put Citizens United down for the process known as "reargument" on June 29, 2009, the last day of that year's term, and the day that Souter retired. The maneuver set the trajectory of the case and ultimately prevented Souter's dissent from being published. As U.C.–Irvine School of Law professor Rick Hasen notes on his blog, "thanks to the reargument … the criticism that the Court decided the issue without briefing was gone."
If you're interested in seeing Souter's full dissent, so are we. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen anytime soon. As has been reported, Souter gave all "his papers to the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord, where they will remain closed for 50 years."
If Toobin's account is accurate, I'm a little confused on the "damage the credibility of the Court" angle. If Souter believed that what he wrote was true, then perhaps the Court's credibility should be damaged, or maybe we could read it and decide for ourselves. How far are we willing to go on "protecting credibility"? Doesn't credibility have some connection to actions taken?
###
This sort of mean-spirited bigotry ought to be illegal. At 1:00 a.m. Tuesday the Virginia state legislature denied a judgeship to a supremely qualified nominee for the sole reason that he is gay.
###
Send this gut-check to your crazy uncle. By every quantifiable metric -- taxes, economic growth, spending, deficits, jobs -- we are better off today than we were four years ago.
###
The first inductee into the Hall of Infamous Missourians
###
Catholic bishops are threatening to sue over the contraception mandate. Though the Obama administration came to a compromise on requiring religious employers to provide birth control as part of their health plans, the bishops say they are still unhappy with insurers being forced to provide copay-free contraceptives, and will take legal action if Congress does not rectify the situation.
###
Mississippi Rep. Lester "Bubba" Carpenter is so happy with the "progress" that ensued when Governor Phil Bryant passed a law to ensure that Mississippi abortion providing doctors have admitting privileges at hospitals (shortly after signing the bill into law, Bryant announced that the Democrats' "one mission in life is to abort children"). To Bubba, this is an example of a sneaky and effective way that states can get rid of legal abortion without having to overturn Roe v. Wade! NO ONE WILL EVEN NOTICE. And the ladies can still get abortions at home using hangers and things, it will be great. Speaking in Alcorn County last week, Carpenter told the supportive crowd, "[L]iterally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to– Roe vs. Wade. So we've done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They're like, 'Well, the poor pitiful women that can't afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.' That's what we've heard over and over and over. But hey, you have to have moral values." BUT HEY! READ MORE »
###
No comments:
Post a Comment