Progressive News Feeds

Nearly three years ago, as reporters shifted their focus away from the Gulf oil spill, they managed to overlook a pipeline spill that happened just 10 days after the BP well was capped. Their oversight was a boon to a non-profit with only seven full-time employees, which recently beat leading national newspapers in the race for the national reporting Pulitzer Prize for its investigative reporting on that spill. The non-profit InsideClimate’s award-winning report on the oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, titled “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside The Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of,” noted that the national press was uninterested in the spill: Despite the scope of the damage, the Enbridge spill hasn’t attracted much national attention, perhaps because it occurred just 10 days after oil stopped spewing from BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, which had ruptured three months earlier

Tags: barack-obama, congress, director, elections, environment, health, jobs, michigan, security, the nation

The National Rifle Association is distorting a survey that experts say already uses questionable methology to claim that the vast majority of police don’t believe background checks will reduce violent crime. The  Washington Post’s  website is currently displaying an NRA ad which states, “80% of police say background checks will have no effect on violent crime.” But the  poll in question , conducted by the law enforcement news portal PoliceOne, does not ask respondents whether they believe background checks will have an effect on violent crime. As Slate’s William Saletan  has noted , the only question in the survey that produced results similar to the ones the NRA cited was the question, “Do you think that a federal law prohibiting private, non-dealer transfers of firearms between individuals would reduce violent crime?” The bipartisan background check amendment currently under discussion in the Senate would not impact private, non-dealer transfers; it would only require background checks for commercial sales

Tags: america, desktop, discrimination, elections, health, michigan, science, security, slate, the nation, video

Ally Robledo An Idaho Rosauers grocery store has filed trespassing charges against transgender woman Ally Robledo, banning her from ever shopping there. Her violation, according to Lewiston, Idaho Police Captain Roger Lanier, was “urinating while standing up”: LANIER: The store security officer said he had been dealing with a problem over a couple days with the person going into the women’s restroom and urinating while standing up .  A male subject who was using the female restroom, and that made some women customers uncomfortable because of the appearance that a male was using their restroom.

Tags: action, archives, auto, climate, economy, health, michigan, police, progressive news, tweets

A Wall Street Journal op-ed acknowledged the constitutionality of race-conscious law, breaking from the traditional narrative of right-wing media that touts a non-existent “colorblind” Constitution, but incorrectly described the issues in a new Supreme Court case that will examine state bans on affirmative action. In the case Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action , the Supreme Court has decided to examine whether amendments to state constitutions that ban race-conscious equal opportunity programs violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S.

Tags: action, author, education, environment, feeds, michigan, security, video, war

A prominent Egyptian Salafi preacher justified sexual assaults again female protesters, claiming women “ are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped ” in a video posted online Wednesday. The preacher, Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah (also known as “Abu Islam”) is the owner of a private television channel called “al-Ummah” and has previously been accused of defaming Christianity for comments made to the press and destroying bibles in front of the U.S.

Tags: #abortion, #Egypt, family, islam, michigan, pepsi, tweets, yahoo

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) distanced himself from his party’s effort to rig the election by appropriating electoral votes based on gerrymandered Congressional districts, telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday that he opposes the effort. Republican party leaders in Virginia , Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , and Michigan have proposed legislation that would change how most electoral votes are allocated, awarding more electoral votes to the winner of individual Congressional districts , rather than the winner of the state as a whole.

Tags: college, congress, economy, house speaker, lgbt, michigan, pennsylvania, thinkprogress, tweets

Now that the Obama administration and Congress are engaged in a debate over immigration policy, a Media Matters review of major news outlets has found that when it comes to immigration coverage, anti-immigrant commentator Mark Krikorian continues to be the media’s preferred conservative voice. Krikorian heads the Center for Immigration Studies, a group associated with notorious nativist John Tanton and whose research has been called into question – but these facts are routinely ignored in coverage of his remarks.

Tags: author, christian, congress, economy, foreign-policy, houston, michigan, university, white house

The Wisconsin State Journal failed to note specific health and environmental risks associated with taconite mining — such as increased levels of mesothelioma among miners and groundwater contamination — in an editorial and news story on a mining reform bill that conservative members of the legislature have made a priority for 2013. What Is Taconite Mining

Tags: cnn, desktop, environment, feeds, foreign policy, government, marriage equality, media, michigan, security

Global health experts worry that a new breed of malaria that has arisen in South Asia could reverse trends in the fight against the disease, since it has proven resistant to the drugs usually used to treat malaria infections. Cases of malaria are currently treated with a drug called artemisinin, which typically clears the Plasmodium parasite that causes malaria’s symptoms from humans within about 24 hours. However, a new strain of the disease has sprung up on the Thailand-Myannmar border that has shown the ability to cling to its host for three days or more after the administration of treatment.

Tags: #abortion, action, africa, contraception, diseases, economy, facebook, feeds, global-health, health, michigan, yahoo

With the new year approaching, Republicans are not feeling as enthusiastic about 2013 as their Democratic counterparts, a new Washington Post-ABC poll finds. Perhaps due to the sweeping Democratic and progressive victories across the country in November, only 25 percent of Republicans feel personally hopeful for what the new year will bring; just 18 percent think the world will be better off in 2013.

Tags: action, archives, economy, facebook, feeds, gun-control, lgbt, michigan, politics