Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Daily News Drop! I’m here to give you a quick view of the news in one concise post. Rather than jabbering, let’s get to today’s batch of news!

Wilkerson – “I am Willing to Testify” If Cheney’s Put on Trial Great segment on today’s Democracy Now. Based on the softball questions that Dick Cheney is facing on his press tour, Amy Goodman spoke to Glenn Greenwald and former Bush official Lawrence Wilkerson to get the truth out there – the media is ignoring the fact that Cheney is an admitted War Criminal. Wilkerson also dropped a bombshell – if the US or another country indicted Cheney on War Crime charges, he would be willing to testify in said trial.

The Paradox of Homeland Security Spending Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the problem that is Homeland Security spending. As a rule, funding can only rise or plateau because politicians would never allow themselves to be seen as opposed to homeland security. This is great news for the military-industrial complex but horrible news for America’s budget.

Former Romney Staffer Key Role in Islamophobia Movement Extrapolating from the Center for American Progress’ report on the funding of the Anti-Islam media push, Think Progress has found a connection – former Romney Staffer Chris Slick is heavily involved in the push to promote the lie that Sharia Law in invading this country. There’s a video at the end of the story detailing the U.S./Sharia Law connection that Fox News is desperately trying to legitimize.

Exxon Wins Access to Arctic to Drill Exxon Mobil is ecstatic that they won the bidding war to drill in a newly opened area in the Arctic Ocean from a Russian company. One thing that the media is missing in this analysis is why this area is now open to be drilled in. Enough sea ice melted to allow drilling access. Why did the sea ice melt? Global warming. Get ready oil companies, more extracted oil will lead to more carbon emissions… which will lead to less sea ice and more drilling areas.

Virginia Attempting to Make Abortion Practically Illegal Depressing story from Kate Sheppard. Virginia is becoming the latest example of states finding ways to make abortion illegal while still technically complying with Roe v. Wade. Virginia’s tactic is regulating the dimensions of pre-op rooms and even hallways in a fashion that eliminates existing clinics that provide abortion. By creating these guidelines, they effectively shut down these clinics and reduce access of abortions to the state as a whole.

Rethinking the Charter School Paradigm For anyone who watched Waiting for Superman and found the argument that Teachers Unions were solely at fault for our failing schools, Slate’s commentary of Steven Brill’s book Class Warfare clearly speaks its thesis – charter schools are not the panacea that they are made out to be and in fact aren’t necessarily any better than public schools. There’s far too much in the article for me to describe them all here, just read the information and see if your mind is changed.

Fox Host to Bill Nye – “You’re Confusing our Viewers” Kudos to Bill Nye for having the constitution to continually going onto Fox and discussing Climate Change. I don’t really fault the host in this video clip, he’s just uninformed, not antagonistic. Mr. the Science Guy spoke clearly and conveyed that the science is settled on the matter of Global Warming. Watch the clip and be happy that we’ve got Bill Nye on our side.

Once again we conclude with a happier story to lighten the mood a bit…

Balancing or Bandwagoning With God? Very funny post from Foreign Policy. It looks at Michele Bachmann’s statement that the recent earthquake and hurricane were signs from God that we needed to cut spending in Washington. From there, the discussion moves to how best we would react to God’s signs if He were another country in a foreign relations standpoint. My International Politics professor would be proud that I still knew what balancing and bandwagoning was! This whole post, including the possibility of a realpolitik temporary alliance with Satan, was quite enjoyable. Read and enjoy.

Thanks for reading and staying informed! Alex will be taking a little break from the Daily News Drops, so I will be putting these out seven days a week. I hope you’ll stay with me! Come back tomorrow for more news, as well as reading and sharing other posts on The Progressive Playbook.

Sources: Democracy Now, Salon, Think Progress, New York Times, Mother Jones, Slate, Talking Points Memo, Foreign Relations