Q: What do you get when you package boundless idealism with ruthless, cunning and manic energy in a consummate political operator? A: A wily lawyer, who writes, passes and then enforces the law that brings the tobacco industry to its knees and makes himself a fortune in the process!

It's...

Hysterics at the right-wing think tanks and their acolytes at The Washington Times, talk radio and the blogosphere, are foaming in apoplexy because I supposedly suggested that "all climate deniers should be jailed." Last week, that canard leapt from the wingnut echo chamber into New York magazine, which

When six-year-old William Louis-Dreyfus saw a blind beggar in tinted glasses waving a tin cup on a Paris street, he emptied his pockets of coins for the man. William's wealthy grandmother looked on with disapproval. "You don't know if he was really blind," she scolded. "Even then, it struck me...

My uncle, President John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize winning best-seller Profiles in Courage recounted the stories of courageous U.S. Senators -- Republicans and Democrats -- who chose patriotism over partisanship and sacrificed personal ambition to national welfare. The GOP's recent efforts to gin up presidential scandals in punitive hearings, media...

The Mississippi's River southernmost delta is home to a rich ecosystem, robust, culture and booming economy. Wetlands provide critical storm protection for the Louisiana's coast. A recent poll by America's Wetland Foundation found that 74 percent of Louisiana residents "consider saving the coast to be the most important...

In 1982, complying with a federal court order stemming from a lawsuit filed by environmentalists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, finally issued regulations governing toxic pollution discharges under the 1972 Clean Water Act. Industry polluters had used political clout to delay those regulations for a decade. But even as EPA...

For once with good reason, the GOP is exorcised with the scandals involving the IRS targeting political groups and the FBI's spying on A.P. reporters. The broader public is legitimately concerned. However, in its classic overblown breathlessness at all things Obama, the gleeful Republican leadership is already calling for impeachment...

In a surprise move, the eight Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee yesterday blocked a floor vote on President Obama's nominee, Gina McCarthy, as EPA Administrator. In doing so the Republican senators broke their earlier promisadditione to move McCarthy's nomination if she answered an...

Co-authored by Marc A. Yaggi, cross-posted from The Guardian

Next week, diplomats from around the world will gather in Geneva to negotiate a treaty on global emissions of mercury - a lethal neurotoxin that includes, among an inventory of grim effects, brain damage and the loss of...

A December 2012 Siena College poll shows that upstate New Yorkers oppose fracking by an astounding margin of 45-39. Those numbers surprise New York politicians who can generally count on the support of upstaters for virtually any industrial or commercial enterprise that promises...

I hope Cloud Atlas is a blockbuster, but it's a film not easily categorized so it might not find the audience it deserves. I took my 11- and 15-year-old children and a gang of their pals and parents to see Cloud Atlas this past weekend. Everyone emerged inspired, enthralled and...

Last week, the world got a preview of America's new post Citizens United petro plutocracy with the oil lords flexing their political muscles like oil soaked body builders pumped up on a steroid drip of campaign dollars. It was all about fracking. The petro tycoons first orchestrated the...

I was surprised when Mitt Romney's son, Matt, resuscitated the "birther" issue in New Hampshire on December 29. Speaking at a campaign event, the young Romney deflected a question about his father's refusal to release his income tax return by citing a proposal that President Barack Obama should...

It's now become de rigueur among the radical right wing rhetoricians to characterize any government support of America's green energy sector as wasteful, fruitless, and scandalous. They greeted with glee the collapse of the government supported solar company, Solyndra, America's first major casualty in our race with China to dominate...

Superb investigative journalism by the New York Times has brought the paper under attack by the natural gas industry. That campaign of intimidation and obfuscation has been orchestrated by top shelf players like Exxon and Chesapeake aligned with the industry's worst bottom feeders. This coalition has launched an...

Like the 104th Congress when Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, the House today is swinging a sledgehammer at a cornerstone of contemporary American democracy and undermining the most extraordinary body of environmental law in the world.

Chief among the attacks is HR 2018, known as the "Clean...

This week an important protest is taking place in the coalfields of West Virginia. The March on Blair Mountain began on Monday as several hundred people embarked on a five-day journey retracing the steps of over 10,000 miners who 90 years ago staged the largest armed insurrection after...

As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into...

On November 22, 1963, Mummy picked me up early from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. Driving home to Hickory Hill in northern Virginia, I noticed that all the District flags were at half staff. Mummy told us that a bad man had shot Uncle Jack and that he...

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's...