New York May Stop Heartless Health Insurers from Dropping Coverage When It Stops Being Profitable

William Ehart, Washington Times

Health and Wellness: The proposed Ian's law, named after a victim of muscular dystrophy who requires an electronic device to speak would protect the most vulnerable from losing coverage.

How Does a Religious Cult Have the Clout to Delay Health Care Vote?

Adele Stan, AlterNet

Politics: To keep House vote on track, Pelosi struggles to appease the church and The Family cult on abortion language.

Obama's First Year: It Ain't No Crystal Staircase

Robert L. Borosage, Campaign for America's Future

Politics: Obama will increasingly have to choose -- whether to hold to his vision and raise the stakes, or compromise his vision to cut the deal.

Nothing But Bad Policy Options for Obama in Afghanistan

Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com

World: Can we avoid an approach to Afghanistan where impending disaster is seen as an invitation to make things even worse?

Focusing on Fort Hood Killer's Beliefs Is an Easy Out to Avoid the Deeper Reasons for the Massacre

Mark Ames, AlterNet

Media and Technology: That alleged killer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is a Muslim is not enough to explain the attacks.

Thousands of Right-Wingers Rally at Capitol to Hear Lies About Health Care Reform, Courtesy of Bachmann and GOP Leaders

Adele Stan, AlterNet

Politics: Days before a health bill is expected to pass the House, Republicans rallied their flock with the help of Fox News, Michele Bachmann and leading conservative groups.

Claim: CIA Sent Prisoners Abroad to Be Boiled Alive and 'Raped with Broken Bottles'

Daniel Tencer, Raw Story

World: Former British ambassador alleges CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan.

If You Say the Taliban = 9/11 Often Enough, Maybe Someone Will Believe It?

Greg Palast, GregPalast.com

World: It's the latest hit from the same crew that brought you Saddam = 9/11 and its twin chant, Saddam = WMD.

Why Congress' Health Care Bills Are Better Than You Think

Maggie Mahar, Health Beat

Politics: The health care bills wending through Congress are getting a bad rap. And the major culprit is the Congressional Budget Office, and its chief, Doug Elmendorf.

How a Public Jobs Program Could Put America Back on Track

Julianne Malveaux, The Progressive

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: The same nation that created a Works Progress Administration in the 1930s should create another one in the 21st century.

Who's to Blame for All the Dithering on Climate Legislation?

Faiz Shakir, The Progress Report

Environment: Yes, Inhofe is behind much of it, but he's only part of the problem.

Christians to Get Their Own Exclusive Prison? Loopholes for Religious People Keep Growing

PZ Myers, Pharyngula

PEEK: "I may just have to convert to Catholicism so I can charge the US and my insurance provider to cover my near-sightedness treatments at Lourdes."

For Glenn Beck, SEIU Is 'Radical, Marxist,' Except When Its Nurses Treat Him for Emergency Abdominal Pains

Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet

Media and Technology: Beck described SEIU nurse care as "amazing" after his inflamed appendix was removed.

Want to Save Our Economy from Almighty Greed? Here Are 10 Crucial Fights and Key Fighters to Watch

Zach Carter, AlterNet

Politics: If the economic crisis taught us anything, it's that bringing to heel the whiz kids of finance is a top priority.

Fort Hood Shootings: 12 Dead, 31 Injured On Texas Military Base (VIDEO)

AlterNet

Media and Technology: Army psychiatrist suspected of massacre survived return fire from authorities and is in custody and hospitalized in stable condition.

Former CIA Agent Once Played by George Clooney Explains Why He Quit DC and Is Holing Up in the Rockies

Christopher Ketcham, CounterPunch

The whistleblowing agent depicted in "Syriana," Bob Baer is back in Silverton, Colo, where "people who messed up in some other life and come here to be nobody."

For Glenn Beck, SEIU Is 'Radical, Marxist,' Except When Its Nurses Treat Him for Emergency Abdominal Pains

Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet

Media and Technology: Beck described SEIU nurse care as "amazing" after his inflamed appendix was removed.

Many Still Believe That Saddam Hussein Was Behind 9/11, and Now We Have Some Idea Why

Emily Badger, Miller-McCune.com

Media and Technology: Researchers looking at beliefs about al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein have made some surprising discoveries about why peopl

7 Diseases That Big, Juicy Steaks Could Give You

Sara Novak, Planet Green

Health and Wellness: We know meat isn't necessarily the most healthy dietary choice; it could also be a fatal one.

Why Unemployment Is More Important Than Health-Care Reform

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

Politics: Has Obama spent too much political capital on health-care reform, and not enough on keeping families afloat in a flailing economy?

NYC Marathon Raises Question of Who Is American Enough?

James E. Johnson, Jr., Imagine 2050

Rights and Liberties: Who gets to choose who is American or American enough? And how will they choose?

Is the Right-Wing Tea Party Kettle Starting to Losing Its Steam?

Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones

Politics: What if they gave a Tea Party and nobody came? Michele Bachmann and company promised a barrage of protest calls to the Capitol but, so far, things are kind of quiet.

Washed-Up Actor Leads Cause to Distribute Christianized Version of Darwin's Evolution Theory

Randy Olson, Island Press

Media and Technology: Attempting to subvert the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's groundbreaking 'Origin of the Species,' 50,000 copies will be handed out.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Why Your Children May Not Get a Swine Flu Shot Before They Need It

Barbara Ehrenreich, Tomdispatch.com

Health and Wellness: Too much faith in private enterprise has left us open to a flu epidemic.

23 CIA Agents Convicted in Italy for Kidnapping Egyptian Cleric

Gina Doggett, Agence France Presse

World: The CIA's Milan station chief at the time, Robert Seldon Lady, was sentenced to eight years in prison and othersto five years, all in their absence in the landmark trial.

Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Eating Animals' Book Will Fundamentally Change the Way You Think About Food

Kathy Freston, AlterNet

Food: "He is the Michael Pollan of a younger generation: grittier and more daring, more insightful and decisive."

Why Can't the Corporate Media Just Tell the Truth About Iraq & Afghanistan?

Rory O'Connor, MediaChannel.org

Media and Technology: One NY Times reporter finally 'fesses up that the invasion of Iraq wasn't presented truthfully by the big media outlets. It's still not too late to tell the truth.

U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Are Burning Copies of the Koran? Are We Really That Stupid?

Abdullah Obaidi, Asia Times

World: According to villagers, several U.S. soldiers burned Korans when they couldn't locate insurgents they believed had blown up part of their convoy.

Are Some Airlines Just Too Dangerous to Fly?

Richard Korman, Miller-McCune.com

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: A new study calls for standardizing aircraft maintenance across the globe, but until then, the answer just might be yes.

The Execution of a Potentially Innocent Man Less Scandalous Than an Affair?

Michelle Goldberg, The American Prospect

Rights and Liberties: There's something really rotten in the state of Texas.

Ten Things You Can Do to Reduce Incarceration

Walter Mosley, Rae Gomes, The Nation

Rights and Liberties: Come out of the closet about your drug use; hire a formerly incarcerated person; vote for politicians who are smart on crime.

It's Time to Rebuild Our Passenger Railroad System

James Howard Kunstler, Chelsea Green Publishing

Restoring the American railroad system is an excellent place to start recovering our sense of national purpose and faith in collective enterprise.

Iraq Movie, 'The Hurt Locker' Is Generating Oscar Buzz: But Does It Deserve It?

Jasmin Ramsey, AlterNet

World: Critics have praised the film as a realistic, Academy Award-worthy piece of filmmaking. But is there really anything realistic about it?

Our Produce-or-Die Culture Is Killing Us -- And We're Idiotically Grinning and Bearing It

Joe Bageant, JoeBageant.com

Politics: We've been reduced to "human assets" in a relentless economic machine. And we can't even complain: appearing cheerful is vital when all of life is monitored by an employer.

5 Key Fights We Face Against the Insurance Industry in the Push for Better Health Care

Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Politics: There's momentum to repair our fractured health care system -- but activism is desperately needed to keep the process honest.

What You Should Be Watching For This Election

Megan Carpentier, Air America Media

From the battle between moderate Republicans and the teabaggers, to marriage equality legislation, there is hot political action in the voting booths this year.

Neocons Salivating Over Their Next Great Exaggerated "Threat": Electromagnetic Pulse Attack

Robert Farley, Right Web

Media and Technology: A diverse array of rightwing factions have united behind the effort to promote the EMP threat thesis.

Fetus-Shaped Potatoes? Going Undercover Inside the Weird World of Right-Wing Abortion Foes

Ann Neumann, AlterNet

Reproductive Justice and Gender: I went undercover to a Pro-Life Federation conference. What I found there was not "middle America" or even conservative America. It was fringe America.

Are the "New Atheists" As Bad as Christian Fundamentalists?

Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet

Belief: The most aggressive members of the "New Atheism" movement have quite a bit in common with religious extremists like Pat Robertson and Ted Haggard.

"Restless Vagina Syndrome": Big Pharma's Newest Fake Disease

Terry J. Allen, In These Times

Sex and Relationships: The pharmaceutical industry wants you to think that if you don't have sex like a porn star, you're in need of their drugs.

Is Adultery Good for Women? In Defense of Ashley Madison, the Cheaters' Website

Jeff Schult, Your Tango

Sex and Relationships: Despite criticism, Ashley Madison -- a website that facilitates affairs between married men and women -- attracts an unprecedented percentage of female users. Why?