We’ve come through yet another challenging week. The mindbenders went all out, it seems, to drain our brains. But we know their game.
Paul Street – It Takes a Ruling-Class Village to Staff the White House
A recurrent theme in major speeches given last month at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia held that Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton look to “we the people” instead of rich, powerful and purportedly great individuals like Donald Trump to guide the United States. Repeating a prominent refrain in Obama’s 2008 campaign, top Democrats said the operative …
Greg Palast – The GOP’s Stealth War Against Voters
When Donald Trump claimed, “the election’s going to be rigged,” he wasn’t entirely wrong. But the threat was not, as Trump warned, from Americans committing the crime of “voting many, many times.” What’s far more likely to undermine democracy in November is the culmination of a decade-long Republican effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of battling voter fraud. The …
Rebecca McCray – There Are More Women in U.S. Jails Than Ever Before
An unusual thing happened last year: The number of people in U.S. prisons declined. After decades of exponential growth, both the state and federal prison populations dropped slightly, reflecting the steady embrace of policy reforms enacted over the last decade intended to curtail corrections costs. Yet as prison populations in many states have declined, the number of women in jails has skyrocketed. …
It’s Our Money – Local Power to the Rescue – 08.17.16
Improving the quality of life and local economies is a concern best addressed by local citizens. Today we revisit how the remarkable commitment of “Non-partisan” North Dakota citizens wrested state control from monopolist outsiders and produced lasting changes that continue to benefit them a century later. Guest David Morris, a co-founder of the Institute for Local Self Reliance, talks with Walt about how we need to reclaim the narrative that government can and should work well on our behalf. And Ellen talks with “The World Belongs to Everyone” author Alana Hartzog about how our current method of taxation overlooks a more obvious and fair approach based on land and the Earth itself.
Ellen Brown – Can Jill Carry Bernie’s Baton? A Look at the Green Candidate’s Radical Funding Solution
Bernie Sanders supporters are flocking to Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential candidate, with donations to her campaign exploding nearly 1000% after he endorsed Hillary Clinton. Stein salutes Sanders for the progressive populist movement he began and says it is up to her to carry the baton. Can she do it? Critics say her radical policies will not hold up to …
Tom Engelhardt – Whose Century Is It?
Vladimir Putin recently manned up and admitted it. The United States remains the planet’s sole superpower, as it has been since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. “America,” the Russian president said, “is a great power. Today, probably, the only superpower. We accept that.” Think of us, in fact, as the default superpower in an ever more recalcitrant world. Seventy-five years …
Mac Slavo – Company Selling Genetic Data On Millions Of Americans
The questions of our time have become – Who owns you? Your data? What about your DNA? For customers who opted into signing a consent form when they signed up to have their DNA sequenced through the company 23andMe, it would appear that their DNA data belongs to a giant database that is being shared and sold to third-party medical …
Madeleine Albright Unhinged Nutcase?
Madeleine Albright is alleged to have said on Friday on CNN of Hilary Clintons alleged use of an unsecured private server for her official email that: “She has said she made a mistake, and nobody is going to die as a result of anything that happened on emails.” I personally find this to be the most breathtaking stupidity and I …
The End of Black Harlem
I HAVE lived in Harlem for half my life — 30 years. I have seen it in all its complexities: a cultural nexus of black America, the landing place for Senegalese immigrants and Southern transplants, a home for people fleeing oppression and seeking opportunity. Harlem is the birthplace of so much poetry and music and beauty, but in the eyes …