Lawrence Wittner: Although studies have found that the United States ranks 17th among nations in education, 26th in infant mortality, and 37th in life expectancy and overall health, there is no doubt that it ranks first when it comes to war.
Mexico Sets the Tone on Hate Speech
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Activists have for decades argued the relationship between hate speech and violence. Cleaning up language is just one more needed act furthering LGBTQ justice. And Mexico is leading the way.
Conservatives in 2013
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Carl Matthes: In 2012, conservatives lost the Presidency plus seats in the Senate and House. They see America changing and, wIthout a national leader, conservatives have splintered.
An Air Freshener for the Outhouse
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Johnny Townsend: Trying to recover from all the damage caused by water pollution and carbon emissions and other toxins will cost the country a great deal more than the short-term profits waiting to be made now.
Do the Laws of Robotics Apply to Meatspace Avatars?
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Rev. Square: For readers not already acquainted with them, the Laws of Robotics are a 20th century fabulist’s attempt to formulate a logically consistent, morally adequate, and reasonably enduring moral code for imaginary, yet-to-be-inventable robots.
‘Henny Penny’ Liberals
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Berry Craig: Suddenly, it’s 1858 and gaffe-a-minute Mitt is Abe Lincoln and President Obama is Sen. Stephen A. Douglas. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the MSNBC TV talking heads show up for work tonight in sack cloth and ashes.
Koch Brothers: The Least of Our Worries
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Robert Illes: But in many ways worse are the watery “liberals” on, say, MSNBC, especially Chris Matthews, whose main interest seems self-serving, to maintain the election as seeming like a tight horse race.
SB 1070: California Is Not Arizona
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Hector Villagra: Monday’s decision shows that Arizona is a failed experiment. Most of this law – most of it has been struck down. And the piece that remains is obviously on life support. And it’s just a matter of time before that dies the death that it deserves.
Trayvon’s Punch
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Robert Illes: Anyway, for me, at least there is the newly minted image that Trayvon went down fighting for his life – “standing his ground,” don’t you know, in the spirit of Jeb Bush’s NRA written law.
An Open Letter to Richard Cordray
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Charles Hayes: Please rename your agency. Stop calling us consumers. We are Citizens with a capital C. In addition, please lead an effort to ask all kinds of media to follow suit.
Coca: One More Thing US Drugs Policy Gets Wrong
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Diane Lefer: In Bolivia, as in much of the Andes, people understand that coca leaves are not the same as cocaine. The leaves, which are rich in vitamins and minerals, are used for tea, in candies, in flour for baking cakes, as an anaesthetic, and in beverages.
Dogs Against Romney Speak Out!
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Brent Budowsky: Here come the Romney attack ads against Santorum in Michigan, the vulture politics of the vulture capitalist who sets new standards of negative campaigning!
U.S. Probe of Border Attack Hardened Pakistani Suspicions
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Gareth Porter: The long-expected rejoinder, made public Monday, charged that 28 of its soldiers at two border bases were killed one by one long after the U.S. military had been told about the attack on a Pakistani base.
Hazing or Hate Crime?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: We may never know if Champion’s beat down from “hazing” was an accidental homicide or an intended hate crime.
Los Angeles Shows an Alternative Approach to Occupy
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Tom Hayden: Compared with the brutal police crackdowns against the Occupy movement in New York City, Oakland and even the pacific Davis campus of theUniversity of California, the Los Angeles eviction last night was almost entirely peaceful. The question is why.
In California, Labor and Business Standing Together
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Caitlin Vega: While the Chamber of Commerce may call any bill that helps workers a “job killer,” the employer community is not monolithic. Small businesses care about our local communities and are often ignored by their own trade associations.
Brooklyn GOP Win Shows Voters Distrust President Who Cries Wolf
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Randy Shaw: With the President still ignoring cries from his base for confrontational and dramatic action, did anyone really expect those Brooklyn Democrats to be highly motivated to get to the polls?
Financial Regulation Kills Jobs? Perhaps Not
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Marian Wang: But separate from the jobs created to actually handle new regulation, others have pointed out that regulations can have a long-term, positive effect on overall economic growth by preventing the types of crises that put an industry on life-support.
Racism and the Norweigian Madman
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Jessie Daniels: Racism seems to be implicated in this story in two, very telling, ways: Breivik’s views and the initial news reports about the terror strikes.
More Riches for the Rich
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Steve Hochstadt: But neither party has tried very hard to protect the poorest Americans from the outsized greed of the wealthy. About half of all members of Congress are millionaires, and all of them are beholden to the very wealthy for donations to their constant campaigning.
Bigger than bin Laden
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Dick Price: The issue is much bigger than the killing — in your name and my name — of Osama bin Laden. The bigger issue is our endless warmaking, the callous assumption that the United States has the right to bomb or strafe or attack anyplace it pleases.
Citizens-United: Enemy of the People
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Jerry Drucker: Evasion is what the GOP is really good at doing. Senator Kyle of Arizona: “It wasn’t intended to be a factual statement.” It was intended to be a 97% lie.
Obama and War
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John Peeler: Obama has done, in the Libyan case, just what he said he would: with UN Security Council and Arab League authorization, he has put together a coalition to take limited military measures to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Coming Shutdowns and Showdowns: What’s Really at Stake
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Robert Reich: Public budgets are in trouble because revenues plummeted over the last two years of the Great Recession. They’re also in trouble because of tax giveaways to the rich.
Governor Jerry Brown Will Aggressively Push Change
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Randy Shaw: Brown’s history shows that he likes to shake things up soon after taking office, and he now has the perfect opportunity. The public desperately wants a solution to California’s longstanding budget crisis, and Brown’s political capital is as high as it will ever be following an election where Democrats won every statewide race and maintained all their Congressional seats.
Military Experts Call for DREAM Act Passage
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Andrea Nill: Many military experts have come out in support of the DREAM Act, which comprises the majority of undocumented immigrants.
What’s the Deal With the Water in Orange Beach Alabama?
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Georgianne Nienaber: There is no doubt that BP lied about the amount of oil being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from Day One, no doubt that the EPA has obfuscated issues surrounding the use of the chemical dispersant, Corexit, and no doubt that bloggers have gone entirely beyond the tenets of responsible journalism.
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Pelosi on a Mission
Brent Budowsky: Great dreams ultimately come true because of conviction politicians like Nancy Pelosi. Her mission lives on. Her work is far from done.