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One of the big questions environmentalists struggle with is whether there should be a price on nature. For some things, like the cost savings that are realized through cleaner air or water, there is a rote calculation that can be done to price out environmental and health benefits. But, if you think of nature as an independent entity having a worth beyond what it can provide to humans, how do you put a price on it? How much is the Amazon River or the Himalayan mountain range worth?

WASHINGTON, DC – Last night, the DISCLOSE Act which would shine a light on the dark money dominating our democracy was defeated on the Senate floor. Although it received a majority of votes it failed to overcome a filibuster from Senator McConnell. 

Tonight, critical legislation that would shine a light on the dark money dominating our democracy was defeated on the Senate floor. To be clear, it received a majority of votes, but failed to overcome a filibuster from Senator McConnell.

After years of scandals and abuses, it's hard to be surprised by the criminal behavior of major banks. Typically, though, exposes of bank wrongdoing have focused on their financial shenanigans.

But yesterday, thanks to the dogged work of Senate investigators, we learned that the criminality of some banks goes much deeper, with these institutions servicing drug traffickers and terrorist-linked entities, and circumventing U.S. laws governing ties with rogue states like Iran, Sudan, and North Korea.

All to boost the bottom line.

At a campaign stop in Ohio yesterday, President Obama said the following:

The Supreme Court issued a little-noticed decision in a Maryland case that gave the green light to states to eliminate the repugnant practice of “prison-based gerrymandering.”

True or false: A sizeable slice of congressional Republicans would vote for revenue increases, if packaged the right way.

How to value the economic role that natural resources play and incorporate some of these external costs so that not only are we aware of the impacts, we can begin to start incorporate them into pricing. 

Every day brings more reminders of the terrible unfairness that besets our country, the tragic reversal of fortune experienced by millions who once had good lives and steady jobs, now gone.

An article in the current issue of Rolling Stone chronicles “The Fallen: The  Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class” and describes a handful of middle-class men and women made homeless, forced to live out of their cars in church parking lots in Southern California.