Media

Hurricane Sandy is the most recent storm to have shed light on the dangers of development in waterfront areas along the Eastern seaboard, but communities from Colorado to Missouri to South Dakota have also grappled for years with the growing risk of environmental damage from everything from rising rivers to forest fires -- dangers that are growing more acute thanks to climate change.

Despite President Obama’s important, even landmark, accomplishments, by the time November 6 arrived, many Americans were disappointed with his first term. They expected him to be a “transformational” president who would somehow, single-handedly, change Washington’s political culture.

One of the many parts of the financial sector that the crisis exposed as desperately in need of reform was the 401(k) industry. In 2008 alone, the securities industry lost over $2 trillion in workers’ hard-earned 401(k) and IRA savings.

A new Media Matters study shows that not only was climate change absent from the Presidential debates, it was virtually absent from media coverage. Total media coverage of climate change was just over three and a half hours since August 1st. However, the vast majority of this -- two and a half hours worth -- was on MSNBC. The other networks combined spent 51 minutes discussing climate change.

Poverty’s up, but still ignored. The drumbeat of evidence shows that it remains, despite the recovery, persistently high. The official Census poverty measure this summer found a record 15 percent of Americans living in poverty. But, as expected, that lowballs it. The official measure, which hasn’t been updated in fifty years, is inadequate.

Walmart maintains its low prices on the backs of workers. Reuters reports:

Just sixty-one individuals gave $285.2 million to Super PACs in the 2012 elections, contributing the same amount as 1,425,500 small grassroots donors to the major party presidential candidates, according to a new report from Demos and U.S. PIRG.

This report, the fourth in a series, focuses on "the overwhelming influence of a tiny number of wealthy donors."

No doubt the new International Energy Agency (IEA)'s latest World Energy Outlook will be cause for celebration for the fossil fuel industry. In it, IEA points to the strong oil and gas production in the U.S. and predicts that by within a decade or so, the U.S. will become the world's largest oil producer, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia. By 2030, North America could be a net oil exporter and, around the same time, the U.S. will likely be energy independent.

Tuning in to the latest round of fiscal panic, you might think that Congress and the President have been doing exactly nothing about the deficit over the past few years. Of course, though, that is wrong: Major steps have already been taken to control government spending. According to a new analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: