Good morning 99percenters!
Some news and some Van Morrison.

Will Liberals and Conservatives Unite to Defeat Fast Track and the TPP?

In Ralph Nader’s recent book, “Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State,” the longtime labor- and consumer-rights activist predicts that shared agendas will forge new alliances between liberals and conservatives that could defeat crony corporatism.

An upcoming congressional vote on whether to give President Obama the power to secretly negotiate controversial international trade deals may have the potential to prove Nader right.

Obama has asked Congress to grant him trade promotion authority—also called “fast track”—over two deals. One of them, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, would be with a group of 11 other nations; the other, called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, would be with the European Union. The authority would allow him to negotiate and finalize the pacts without giving congressional lawmakers any input.

In fact, the specific provisions will not be revealed until after lawmakers have already voted on fast track. In addition, if the authority is granted, debate would be very limited, and members of Congress would not be able to amend the agreements; they could only vote yes or no on them.

Bill O’Reilly’s sick pathology: Why his systematic lying is even worse than reported
Fox News' bully may be in hot water for lying about his war correspondence. But his lies go much deeper than that

Much like suspended NBC anchor Brian Williams, Bill O’Reilly’s war stories are unraveling. His tales of reportorial derring-do – in Argentina, El Salvador, Ferguson, Northern Ireland – are turning out to be stories of derring-didn’t.

O’Reilly addressed the Brian Williams controversy in a February 5 segment for The O’Reilly Factor. “You go on Letterman– I’ve been on there many times– and you want to please. You want to be interesting. You want to be fascinating. You want to be cool…. It is easy for me, but for some people it’s hard,” O’Reilly explained.

“He knows what he did was wrong. A lot of people exaggerate their life experience, and he got caught…. I don’t think Americans care anymore. I think they’re so used to being lied to, they’re so cynical about the media, they don’t trust the media at all,” O’Reilly added.

And O’Reilly should know, because it turns out that he’s among the people who “exaggerate their life experience.” But so far, the reports of O’Reilly’s strained relationship with the truth have neglected a very important point: He doesn’t just lie about his own experiences – he lies about everything. And because “everything” includes important political issues, most of his lies are much more damaging than his claims to have drawn fire in the Falklands. From a myriad of examples, we’ve focused on five instances where O’Reilly’s not just lying, but where he demonstrably knows he’s lying, and doing so to better fit a right-wing slant.

Washington’s Al Qaeda Ally Now Leading ISIS in Libya

March 9, 2015 (Eric Draitser - NEO) - The revelations that US ally Abdelhakim Belhadj is now leading ISIS in Libya should come as no surprise to those who have followed US policy in that country, and throughout the region. It illustrates for the umpteenth time that Washington has provided aid and comfort to precisely those forces it claims to be fighting around the world.

According to recent reports, Abdelhakim Belhadj has now firmly ensconced himself as the organizational commander of the ISIS presence inside Libya. The information comes from an unnamed US intelligence official who has confirmed that Belhadj is supporting and coordinating the efforts of the ISIS training centers in eastern Libya around the city of Derna, an area long known as a hotbed of jihadi militancy.

While it may not seem to be a major story – Al Qaeda terrorist turns ISIS commander – the reality is that since 2011 the US and its NATO allies have held up Belhadj as a “freedom fighter.” They portrayed him as a man who courageously led his fellow freedom-lovers against the “tyrannical despot” Gaddafi whose security forces at one time captured and imprisoned many members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), including Belhadj.

Belhadj served the US cause in Libya so well that he can be seen receiving accolades from Sen. John McCain who referred to Belhadj and his followers as heroes. He was initially rewarded after the fall of Gaddafi with the post of military commander of Tripoli, though he was forced to give way to a more politically palatable “transitional government” which has since evaporated in that chaotic, war-ravaged country.

Urinal generates power from pee in England

We've covered a lot of different uses for urine in the past. It's a renewable resource that, while disgusting to some, could actually do a lot of good. Pee can be used to boost your compost, it can be recycled to retrieve minerals and it can also be used to generate electricity.

It's that last one that is the focus of a new project by the University of the West of England in Bristol and Oxfam. The partners have built a urinal that produces electricity from pee using a microbial fuel cell. The first prototype has been set up at the university, but the ultimate setting for the technology could be refugee camps where lighting at night could improve the safety of everyone living there.

The creators wanted a way to solve the problem of attacks, particularly on women, in dark refugee camps. The urinals provide both private toilets and a way to generate electricity for lighting around the camps

The microbial fuel cell technology behind the urinal is one we've written about a few times, like in this DIY version and this technology that produces energy from the bacteria present in the soil. In fact, this same research team has already proven that urine can generate enough electricity to power a cell phone.