Angered over the arrival of federal agents in Portland, Oregon, where racial justice protests have been ongoing for nearly two months, dozens of mothers from across the city joined demonstrators over the weekend to form a “Wall of Moms.” The human shield was formed by the mothers to protect hundreds of demonstrators assembling in the city who […]
At least 40 U.S. climate and environmental advocacy groups on Friday rallied behind two Louisiana Bucket Brigade activists who are facing felony “terrorizing” charges for leaving a box of plastic pellets collected from Texas waters near a coastal Formosa Plastics facility on the doorstep of a fossil fuel lobbyist in December 2019. By Jessica Corbett […]
Anybody with a personal history of protesting or a good resistance library knows that the police often are not friends of Americans’ right of dissent and assembly. And this is especially so when the dissenters are people of color and their allies. Although individual officers may be particularly brutal, this is not a matter of […]
By Meteor Blades Sometimes, an excerpt—even a long one —simply doesn’t do justice to an essay. Since that is the case with Bill Moyers’ piece “We, the Plutocrats vs. We, the People—Saving the Soul of Democracy,” first published by TomDispatch, I’m only providing the link along with his ending paragraph. I know some of you may click that link and upon […]
By Meteor Blades The prime minister of Iceland resigned Tuesday as the weekend exposé of off-shore tax haven shenanigans from the Panama Papers claimed its first major casualty. The year-long investigation carried out by 370 journalists of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (a project of the Center for Public Integrity) was sparked by a massive document leak from the files of the Mossack Fonseca law firm. Their work […]
By David Brin R.J. Eskow – on Salon – offers “11 Questions to see if Libertarians are Hypocrites.” And yes, most of Eskow’s posers certainly do set up some stark and thought-provoking contradictions – even hypocrisies – in the oft-touted positions held by many who today use the “L-word” to describe themselves. The article is […]
By Meteor Blades Back on May 26, Edward Luce at the Financial Times offered the first inkling in the media that President Barack Obama would likely choose Larry Summers as chairperson of the Federal Reserve. He acknowledged that Summers had potential deficits, including a deep-seated abrasiveness. But, wrote Luce, “charm is overrated”: Worries about Mr Summers’ Senate hearings […]
By David Brin Here is a riff that I’ve stored too long. Something that needs saying. Can companies really gain investment capital via the stock market? Elsewhere I have commented on how easily capitalist/entrepreneurial markets can and do get warped by cheating and parasitism. Some of it is inherent, as Adam Smith described way back in […]
By David Brin Elsewhere I’ve long pushed the idea of a financial transactions fee to rebalance the playing field in securities markets, so they will no longer lean so hard in favor of giant Wall Street brokerage houses, now running a scandalous scam called commission-free High Frequency Trading (HFT). Extremely modest in scale, the transaction fee would not […]
You’ve been hearing the drumbeat: We can’t afford clean energy, or high-speed rail, or a green economy, because there just isn’t any money, and unless we cut the deficit RIGHT NOW, the entire world will end and xxxx. We certainly can’t afford to do anything about climate change (you know, that thing that might actually […]
Remember the 47 percent tape? How Romney characterized 47 percent of Americans as moochers? And how the right-wing universe jumped on that as not being what he really meant, and that conservatives really don’t believe that half the country are a bunch of losers who would rather take free stuff from the government than go […]
By David Brin The lesson is simple: do not re-hire the dopes who made the mess. To many U.S. voters, one issue towers foremost — the Fiscal Cliff of rising public debt. We appear to have come a long way since Republican Vice President Dick Cheney famously said “deficits don’t matter.” Today, frightened by much-worse debt crises […]
By David Brin Amid the furor over Mitt Romney’s inelegant remarks about the 47% of Americans who are freeloaders – who pay no net federal income tax (FIT) – many rebuttals have shown that he slagged mostly retirees, lower middle class workers (who still pay payroll and other taxes), and even our fighting men and […]
By David Brin At their convention, the Republicans chose their theme: The coordinated message from two-thirds of their speakers would be American Exceptionalism. Unable to gain leverage by using the economy – which is slowly but clearly recovering from their own train wreck depression – and with the GOP suffering from devastating credibility gaps on everything […]
I hear a lot of people whine about Obama. They say he’s not doing enough. In a perfect world he’d ban GMOs, forbid the Keystone XL pipeline, and never allow an innocent civilian be killed, anywhere in the world. And a pony. But this is the real world, and we DO face a stark choice […]