It’s serious flashback time for those involved in the 1993 debate over the North America Free Trade Agreement. With the “fast track” trade vote expected as early as this Thursday, a Democratic president is once again twisting arms and dangling rewards in a desperate effort to muster votes for a corporate-driven trade deal. And just like in 1993, the vote will be …
Obama, Master of Diversion, Proposes Bogus Reforms of Militarized Police – Glen Ford
President Obama’s “ban” on certain military hardware and gear is both fraudulent and a diversion from the real issue: the oppressive mission of the police in Black America. The cops who killed Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and countless others “weren’t wearing battlefield outfits, firing automatic rifles, or riding around in tanks. They murder quite efficiently with handguns, batons and …
Black America and the Political Economy of Neoliberal Trade Deals – AJAMU BARAKA
President Obama and the corporate democrats continue to press Congress to provide Obama with trade promotion authority (TPA), or so-called fast-track authority to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the first of a series of pernicious so-called free trade agreements. The Flush the TPP website, a major resource for the anti-TPP movement characterizes the TPP as: “A secret trade agreement…(that) threatens to undermine …
House Bulldozed for Wind Farm, Family Says – REBEKAH KEARN
Wind energy companies bulldozed a black family’s house because they were the sole holdouts who refused to sell out to a huge wind farm, the family claims in court. Darlene Dotson and her sons David and Daniel sued EDP Renewables North America, Horizon Wind Energy Co., Rising Tree Wind Farm, CVE Contracting Group, and Renewable Land LLC, on May 7 …
The Average Age Of A Minimum Wage Worker In America Is 36 – Michael Snyder
Did you know that 89 percent of all minimum wage workers in the United States are not teens? At this point, the average age of a minimum wage worker in this country is 36, and 56 percent of them are women. Millions upon millions of Americans are working as hard as they can (often that means two or three jobs), …
One Magical Politician Won’t Stop Climate Change. It’s Up to All of Us – Rebecca Solnit
Lots of people eagerly study all the polls and reports on how many people believe that climate change is real and urgent. They seem to think there is some critical mass that, through the weight of belief alone, will get us where we want to go. As if when the numbers aren’t high enough, we can’t achieve anything. As if …
I’m Not Making This Up: Corporations Use Trade Deals To Attack U.S. Law – Dave Johnson
President Obama says progressives who warn that trade laws let corporations overrule U.S. law are “making this stuff up.” Two attacks on U.S. laws and regulations are underway right now, illustrating how the “corporate courts” provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would open our country up to attacks from foreign corporations. “They’re making this stuff up.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, legal scholars and …
School segregation still impacts African-Americans’ minds decades later
As the nation observes the May 17 anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that ended racial segregation in public schools, a new study has found that desegregated schooling is tied to better performance for certain cognitive abilities in older African American Adults. This research is published in an article titled “Education Desegregation and Cognitive Change in African American Older Adults,” …
U.S. Rates Worse for Maternal Health
According to a new report conducted by the State of the World Mother’s, the United States ranks 33 out of 179 countries surveyed for maternal health. [1] Just last year, the U.S. was at 31. How can a country so developed be drastically behind other countries in taking care of mothers and their newborns? Could it be the medical establishment in the …
The Reasons for Urban Rioting – Lawrence Davidson
If one goes to Wikipedia under the subject of “mass racial violence in the United States,” one will find a “timeline of events” running from 1829 to 2015. There are so many race-related riots listed for these 186 years that, from a historical point of view, rioting appears almost normal. Prior to World War II, these outbreaks mostly involved ethnic, racial or …







