Exciting news coming out of the Green-Rainbow Party, generating serious momentum towards local initiatives. Check out this note from GRP Co-Chairs Jill Stein and John Andrews:

Wow. There was electricity in the air from the start.  And by the end of the day, we knew for certain that something new and exciting had appeared on the scene.

Thirty-five activists met Saturday at the Green-Rainbow Party’s “Initiatives Summit” in Worcester to plan a new future for Massachusetts and beyond.  One by one they rose to tell of their experiences, their hopes, and their vision.  They were tired of the betrayals of a government in which politicians routinely sold out to special interests and big money.  Tired of seeing our men and women – and civilians in far off lands – maimed and killed in wars for oil while arms merchants grew rich. They were tired seeing their neighborhoods ravaged by unemployment and foreclosures while a well-placed few grew ever richer through financial manipulation. And they were tired of seeing their democratic rights eroded by insider deals cut by the Democratic and Republican Parties.  

(continued after the jump)

Watch US Uncut, The Ruckus Society and the Brass Liberation Orchestra drop some tax day love on Bank of America:

“You can’t spoil a system that is spoiled to the core.”

–Ralph Nader

As the Los Angeles Times reports, key Democrats are beginning to embrace the no-holds-barred arena of corporate influence on political elections, in which disclosures of funding are not required by law.

Democrats putting together new independent political organizations for the 2012 campaign are embracing a model that will allow them to conceal their donors – the very tactic for which they criticized Republicans in 2010.

Majority PAC, a new group aimed at electing Democrats to the Senate, and American Bridge 21st Century, which will serve as a research hub, are being organized as so-called super political action committees that can raise unlimited amounts of money from contributors whose donations are reported to the Federal Election Commission. But both are also affiliated with nonprofit 501(c)(4) social welfare groups that can raise money from undisclosed donors and give money directly to super PACs.

The same dual structure is being considered by Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, two former White House aides who are likely to launch their own independent expenditure effort in support of President Obama’s reelection, according to people familiar with the plans.

As a spokesman for Obama, Burton repeatedly hammered Republican groups for their lack of transparency in 2010. He declined to comment.

If you think what’s happening in Japan can’t happen here, think again. The map below shows the reality of what’s at stake:

Actually, what’s at stake is even more troubling, considering that the Quabbin reservoir sits just about 30 miles south of Vermont Yankee, which is known to have been leaking Tritium into the Connecticut River.  

From The Daly News blog

by Herman Daly

There may well be a be a better name than “steady-state economy”, (SSE) but both the classical economists (especially John Stuart Mill) and the past few decades of discussion, not to mention CASSE’s good work, have given considerable currency to “steady-state economy” both as concept and name. Also both the name and concept of  a “steady state” are independently familiar to demographers, population biologists, and physicists. The classical economists used the term “stationary state” but meant by it exactly what we mean by steady-state economy-briefly, a constant population and stock of physical wealth. We have added the condition that these stocks should be maintained constant by a low rate entropic throughput, one that is well within the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the ecosystem. Any new name for this idea should be sufficiently better to compensate for losing the advantages of historical continuity and interdisciplinary familiarity. Also, SSE conveys the recognition of biophysical constraints and the intention to live within them economically-which is exactly why it can’t help evoking some initial negative reaction in a growth-dominated world. There is an honesty and forthright clarity about the term “steady-state economy” that should not be sacrificed to the short-term political appeal of vagueness.