UNDER THE RADAR

LABOR -- RIGHT-WING CORPORATE FRONT GROUP LAUNCHES 'NEWS' SITE TO SMEAR EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT: Last Friday, the Workforce Fairness Institute launched EFCA Wire, "a new 'news' site that's totally devoted to making the case against" the Employee Free Choice Act. As The Progress Report has noted, the Workforce Fairness Institute is nothing more than a corporate front group "founded by several longtime Republican operatives," and likely funded by anti-EFCA giants like Wal-Mart and Home Depot. In a recent interview with Fox News's Glenn Beck, one of those operatives -- former Bush and McCain advisor Mark McKinnon -- pushed the line that Employee Free Choice removes the secret-ballot option, a claim that even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board has begrudgingly admitted is false. Therefore, it's no surprise that EFCA Wire's main purpose is to promote yet another lie. According to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, the site will place "a particular emphasis on the damage [the Employee Free Choice Act] would allegedly do the economy." But estimates by the Economic Policy Institute show that Employee Free Choice would actually lead to higher wages, better benefits, and a more productive economy. On its first day, EFCA Wire's blatant dishonesty was already apparent. One prominently placed link boasted, "The Hill: 74% Oppose EFCA." However, The Hill was merely reporting on an anti-EFCA ad touting such skewed numbers. In fact, the most recent Gallup polling reveals that 53 percent of Americans support a law to "make it easier for unions to organize workers" -- which is exactly what the Employee Free Choice Act does.

RADICAL RIGHT: RIGHT WING'S FALSE CLAIMS THAT OBAMA WILL TAKE AWAY GUNS 'HAS HELPED FUEL THE PANIC BUYING OF FIREARMS': On Saturday in Pittsburgh, a gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire on police officers who were responding to a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them. Many bloggers have noted that the shooter, 23-year old Richard Poplawski, irrationally feared for "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." In a presciently-timed op-ed, New York Times columnist Charles Blow warned of the disturbing escalating rhetoric of right-wingers like Chuck Norris, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and others. Blow writes, "They're [conservatives] apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their 'leaders' seem to be trying to mold them into militias. ... At the same time, the unrelenting meme being pushed by the right that Obama will mount an assault on the Second Amendment has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms. According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year. That's 5.5 million requests altogether over that period; more than the number of people living in Bachmann's Minnesota." The chart accompanying Blow's column shows the recent surge in interest in gun ownership quite clearly.

GLOBAL WARMING -- ICE BRIDGE HOLDING ANTARCTIC SHELF SHATTERS: An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice to two islands in Antarctica has shattered "and may herald a wider collapse caused by global warming," the BBC reported this weekend. Scientists say the collapse could mean that the Wilkins Ice Shelf -- roughly the size of Connecticut -- is on the brink of breaking up, which would be the largest slab of ice so far to disintegrate in the Antarctic. The Wilkins Ice Shelf has been stable for the last 10,000 years, until the early 1990s when it started to break up. "It's amazing how the ice has ruptured," said David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, of the ice bridge. "Two days ago it was intact," he said. "The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. An international meeting of Antarctic and Arctic scientists will report in Baltimore today that "up to one-third of all Antarctic sea ice is likely to melt by the end of the century, seriously contributing to dangerous sea level rises."