n2doc

n2doc's Journal

December 17, 2015

Clinton Tops List of Arms Company Donations

U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was also a favorite of the arms producing giants during her 2006 senate campaign.
Hillary Clinton has received more money from arms and military service companies than any other candidate during the 2016 presidential campaign, data from Open Secrets shows.

All but one of the world’s 10 biggest arms producers have contributed to Clinton’s previous campaigns, giving her — along with the top Republican receiver Ted Cruz — a significant margin over the other candidates.

The numbers, collected by the Federal Election Commission and compiled by Open Secrets, also reveal that Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders make the list of top 20 senators and top six presidential candidates to receive money from arms and defense companies.

Most of the funding is channeled through Political Action Committees, which have no limits to how much they donate. About 18 percent comes from individual contributions, totaling almost US$10 million between all of the companies.

more
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Clinton-Tops-List-of-Arms-Company-Donations-20151214-0002.html

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December 17, 2015

Sanders: Skyrocketing Generic Drug Prices Cost Taxpayers $1.4 Billion

Thursday, December 17, 2015
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 – Skyrocketing generic drug prices cost taxpayers an additional $1.4 billion over the last decade according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general, undertaken at the request of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Prices of top-selling generic drugs rose faster than inflation 22 percent of the time over the 10-year study. If a rebate had been applied on generic drugs rising faster than inflation Medicaid would have saved more than $700 million in 2013 and 2014 alone.

“It is unacceptable that Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. The United States is the only major country on earth that does not in one form or another regulate prescription drug prices and the results have been an unmitigated disaster. This report further demonstrates that we need a new approach to stop skyrocketing drug prices in this country,” said Sanders.

“The IG report confirms that skyrocketing drug prices are not just an isolated problem caused by one or two CEOs motivated by greed, but a systemic injustice that enriches corporate executives at the expense of Americans in desperate need of their medications. Unfortunately, House Republicans have not sent a single letter to a single drug company requesting a single document to investigate these abuses,” said Cummings.

more

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/skyrocketing-generic-drug-prices-cost-taxpayers-14-billion-new-report-finds

December 17, 2015

70k Demand UPS and FedEx Leave ALEC, Stop Funding Climate Denial and Animal Cruelty

Nearly 70,000 people have signed petitions to pressure UPS and FedEx to leave the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative public policy lobbying group known for its opposition to environmental regulations. The two Care2 petitions warn UPS and FedEx that consumers will send their holiday mail through other carriers if the companies do not quit ALEC.

Last year, ALEC saw a mass exodus of companies under pressure from various stakeholder groups. Microsoft severed ties with ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force in August in response to ALEC’s anti-renewables stance after prompting from investors. Google followed suit shortly after, after urging from enviromental groups; during the announcement, chairman Eric Schmidt said he felt ALEC is “making the world a much worse place,” and added, “We should not be aligned with such people. They are just literally lying [about climate change].” By the end of September, Facebook and Yelp ditched the council. AOL and SAP soon followed. eBay confirmed its departure in December after several months of pressure from activists.

Many of these companies were quick to say they had limited involvement with ALEC — that their only involvement was a certain task force, for example. Former eBay CEO John Donahoe clarified by saying, “We are only with them [ALEC] on one issue: Internet,” and “we are not with them” on climate change.

“With eBay out, we’re looking to AT&T, Verizon, FedEx and UPS to follow suit and distance themselves from ALEC’s extreme climate denial agenda,” said Ryan Canney, Senior Campaigner with Climate Truth (formerly Forecast the Facts). “If they choose to stay with ALEC, we’ll be taking the issue to their customers, shareholders and employees.”

more
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/stakeholder_trends_insights/hannah_furlong/70k_demand_ups_fedex_leave_alec_stop_fundi

December 17, 2015

Clinton Tops List of Arms Company Donations

U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was also a favorite of the arms producing giants during her 2006 senate campaign.
Hillary Clinton has received more money from arms and military service companies than any other candidate during the 2016 presidential campaign, data from Open Secrets shows.

All but one of the world’s 10 biggest arms producers have contributed to Clinton’s previous campaigns, giving her — along with the top Republican receiver Ted Cruz — a significant margin over the other candidates.

The numbers, collected by the Federal Election Commission and compiled by Open Secrets, also reveal that Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders make the list of top 20 senators and top six presidential candidates to receive money from arms and defense companies.

Most of the funding is channeled through Political Action Committees, which have no limits to how much they donate. About 18 percent comes from individual contributions, totaling almost US$10 million between all of the companies.

more

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Clinton-Tops-List-of-Arms-Company-Donations-20151214-0002.html

December 17, 2015

Hubble captures first-ever predicted exploding star

This image composite shows the search for the supernova, nicknamed Refsdal, using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image to the left shows a part of the the deep field observation of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 from the Frontier Fields program. The circle indicates the predicted position of the newest appearance of the supernova. To the lower right the Einstein cross event from late 2014 is visible. The image on the top right shows observations by Hubble from October 2015, taken at the beginning of observation program to detect the newest appearance of the supernova. The image on the lower right shows the discovery of the Refsdal Supernova on Dec. 11, 2015, as predicted by several different models.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the image of the first-ever predicted supernova explosion. The reappearance of the Refsdal supernova was calculated from different models of the galaxy cluster whose immense gravity is warping the supernova's light.

Many stars end their lives with a with a bang, but only a few of these stellar explosions have been caught in the act. When they are, spotting them successfully has been down to pure luck -- until now. On 11 December 2015 astronomers not only imaged a supernova in action, but saw it when and where they had predicted it would be.

The supernova, nicknamed Refsdal [1], has been spotted in the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223. While the light from the cluster has taken about five billion years to reach us, the supernova itself exploded much earlier, nearly 10 billion years ago [2].

Refsdal's story began in November 2014 when scientists spotted four separate images of the supernova in a rare arrangement known as an Einstein Cross around a galaxy within MACS J1149.5+2223 (heic1505 -- http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1505/) [3]. The cosmic optical illusion was due to the mass of a single galaxy within the cluster warping and magnifying the light from the distant stellar explosion in a process known as gravitational lensing [4].

"While studying the supernova, we realised that the galaxy in which it exploded is already known to be a galaxy that is being lensed by the cluster," explains Steve Rodney, co-author, from the University of South Carolina. "The supernova's host galaxy appears to us in at least three distinct images caused by the warping mass of the galaxy cluster."

more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216135824.htm

December 17, 2015