Posts tagged post
Raymond J. Learsy: Oil Cartels and Venezuela — A Moment of Truth for the Obama Justice Department
Jun 15th
This post is not about the merits of fossil fuels, fully cognizant of the growing existential danger they present to the environment and planet, but rather about the price of fossil fuels and our government’s decades long complicit policies in the transfer of literally trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth to oil interests and despots around the world. Trillions that have helped to destabilize today’s world, lubricating the clash of civilizations, making it possible for the billions upon billions to be expended by Mideast oil producers to radicalize generations of the young and vulnerable throughout all corners of the globe, to the ethos of jihad and intolerance. The issue is highlighted in a remarkable and eye opening court battle currently being litigated: United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (No
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Paul Abrams: President’s Gulf Speech Is to his Presidency as Rev. Wright Speech Was to his Campaign
Jun 15th
This President has been dealt extraordinary challenges, and extraordinary opportunities to rally the nation behind fundamental reforms. He has the rhetorical and inspirational skills to rally not just ‘the base’, but larger numbers of young, and not-so-young, people who saw multi-layers of transformational power in his Presidency. As the first Earth Day showed, even craven politicians could be clubbed into submission by an active and aroused electorate–7 of the 12 first ‘dirty-dozen’ pro-polluter Congressmen were defeated in the first election following Earth Day, and pro-polluter President Richard Nixon was cowed into signing the key environmental laws (clean air, clean water, endangered species, marine mammal protection, and the creation of the EPA) of the post-World War II era
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Richard (RJ) Eskow: Big Banks vs. American Businesses: "Section 716" Forces Congress to Choose
Jun 15th
It can be hard to grasp all the details of Section 716, the Senate provision that would force big banks to spin off their swap desks, but the principle isn’t that complicated: Banks that get access to discounted money from the Federal Reserve, or federally-guaranteed deposit insurance, shouldn’t be able to gamble with them. And the four huge institutions that dominate the derivatives market shouldn’t use the implicit guarantee of a taxpayer bailout as a license to act recklessly.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Rick Jacobs: Olson & Boies Exorcise the Ghosts of Homophobia Past
Jun 15th
By the time I graduated from Oak Ridge High School in East Tennessee 34 years ago, I knew a few things for sure: 1. I cared deeply about social justice; 2. I expected to become governor or a senator from Tennessee after college; and 3
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Beth Arnold: Letter From Paris: It’s Safe to Come Home Now
Jun 14th
By guest columnist Carla Chanel, an American actress and writer who recently returned to Ventura, California, after living in Paris for the last four years.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Robert Reich: Why the United States Still Can’t Get BP to Do What’s Necessary
Jun 13th
Here’s what Coast Guard Rear Adm. James A. Watson wrote to BP’s chief operating officer on Friday: “Recognizing the complexity of this challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process.” BP’s plans don’t “go far enough to mobilize redundant resources” in the event of an equipment failure or another problem.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Robert Reich: Why We Are Moving Toward a Recessionary Era, and Why Keynes is Being Exhumed
Jun 12th
Double-dip watch: Retail sales in May took their biggest nose-dive in eight months, according to Friday’s report from the Commerce Department.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Joss Garman: The View From Britain: ‘It’s Not Us, It’s You’
Jun 12th
As the oil spill grows to match the size of England’s green and pleasant land, there are signs that the famous British ‘stiff upper lip’ is starting to quiver. Writing in Britain’s right wing Daily Telegraph newspaper Thursday morning, the commentator Damian Reece devised an ingenious equation to justify his assertion that the slick isn’t as bad as you soft-headed Americans would have us believe. “If you take the 1,356 total dead or alive creatures collected…then BP shareholders are currently paying £36.6m per animal based on the fall in the company’s value.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Elizabeth B. Wydra: Tipsy at the Tea Party: A Sober Look at Proposals to Repeal Portions of the Constitution
Jun 8th
It seems that Tea Partiers’ recent political victories may have gone to their heads faster than bubbles in a glass of champagne. Flush from this electoral success, the Tea Party movement is turning its attention to the Constitution with renewed fervor. The result has been some proposals that are at turns wacky, unwise, and even dangerous to our constitutional values.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...John McQuaid: The Real Helen Thomas Scandal
Jun 8th
Last week, Israeli commandos boarded a relief ship attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip and, during a clash with pro-Palestinian activists, shot nine people to death. It was an old-fashioned, bona fide “international incident,” a fiasco that raised alarming questions about the current trajectory of Israel’s security, the wisdom of its government, as well as the fate of Obama’s Middle East policies and U.S
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Beau Friedlander: Is Criticizing Israel Anti-Semitic?
Jun 7th
I just read Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s piece on Huffington Post about Helen Thomas the Jew Hater, and I felt compelled to write something in response. Sure, Helen Thomas had to retire from her post at Hearst after saying that the Jews in Israel should go back to the countries where their forebears died in Nazi death camps. It is an unfortunate way for such an august career to end
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...James Zogby: Helen Thomas
Jun 7th
For years now Helen Thomas has been a challenging voice asking tough questions and refusing to accept evasions from White House spokespersons whose job it is to give as little information as possible. She never let go. During the lead up to the Iraq war, when too many of her colleagues were playing stenographer taking White House dictation, Helen was the ornery one demanding the truth
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
