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August 27, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Across the eastern seaboard of the United States, from South Carolina to Maine, there is an intense and well-ordered preparation underway to brace against and limit the fallout from Hurricane Irene. In North Carolina, 300,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the Outer Banks and low-lying coastal areas. The mayor of New York City, Michael [...]
August 12, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Most of the Republican candidates for their party’s presidential nomination debated last night in Iowa, two days ahead of the crucial Ames Straw Poll, thought to be a leading indicator of which candidates are credible and which are less likely to win in January. Rick Perry, who has not yet announced his candidacy, was not in attendance, and Fred Karger—who met all the criteria for attendance—was not allowed to participate, some say because he is openly gay.
August 8, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
It has become a standard of political and economic commentary that the stock market is a “reflection” of the general economic mood or of wider economic health and wellbeing. It is not. The stock market is not a mood ring and it was not designed to be. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow/DJIA) was not designed to stand alone as an economic indicator, but rather as part of a fabric of tools and analyses that would, taken together, give a more insightful, more complete picture of generalized economic balance.
August 3, 2011 :: The Editors :: No Comment Yet
Allegations that the so-called Tea Party caucus has degenerated into little more than a lobby for the wealthy interests that back them gain credibility when they support tax hikes on the vulnerable, and which will have a direct negative impact on the middle class. It should be well understood by all: the House Tea Party Republicans have pushed for and supported—the anti-student provisions in the failed Republican-only House bills were far worse—tax hikes that will make college more expensive and eat way at middle class wealth.
July 30, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
List of Legislative Riders on H.R.2584, The Interior & Environment Approps bill for FY12 39 provisions in the bill specifically eliminate environmental protections in service of big polluters and GOP campaign donors *In order as they appear in the bill, with section numbers cited. Blocks Endangered Species Act Designations [Language on page 8]: Prohibits funding for [...]
July 26, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
While House and Senate leaders are now moving away from Pres. Obama’s $4 trillion debt deal, proposing far less in real long-term debt and deficit reduction, Standard and Poors is threatening to downgrade the nation’s credit rating for bond sales. The rating agency is demanding $4 trillion in deficit reduction, calling for a plan that will put the debt trajectory on a “sustainable path”.
July 21, 2011 :: The Editors :: No Comment Yet
When comedians are keeping watch over the deliberate falsehoods dispensed by “mainstream media”, there is something rotten in the culture of our free press. Not because comedians shouldn’t do that work—all citizens should—but because the mainstream media should be committed, at every level, to truth-telling and citizenship. Fox News, in light of the bribery, spying and coercion, scandal engulfing its parent company, has definitively shown how far from that mission its news operation is.
July 20, 2011 :: The Editors :: No Comment Yet
Cafe Sentido has gone through various incarnations—first ContourNews, then Sentido.tv, including two supplements: CafeSentido.com, an art and exhibits forum, and The Global Intercept, a headline-linking and rapid-review forum—before taking on its current format as the broadsheet online magazine CafeSentido.com, which combines all of the prior incarnations in one forum. On Tuesday, July 19, we reached [...]
July 18, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
In a shocking development, a former News of the World reporter and key whistleblower in the phone-hacking scandal now sweeping the News Corp. media empire and British political landscape has been found dead at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. Sean Hoare was the first named journalist to have alleged that Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor and top media officer for Prime Minister David Cameron, knew of and openly encouraged illegal phone hacking and other corrupt practices.
July 18, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and his recently arrested protégée, Rebekah Brooks, are scheduled to testify before Parliament, tomorrow. With more than ten people now arrested on allegations of corruption and illegal hacking into private files, the scandal that closed the 168-year-old News of the World tabloid is now threatening to metastasize to the rest of the News Corp. news media properties, and to high-ranking public officials. For the second time in as many days, a top-ranking police official has stepped down, due to alleged connections to the News Corp. scandal.
July 15, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) recently published an op-ed, in which he argued that “If Washington actually had the discipline to live within its means over the long term, every American citizen would not owe $46,000 toward the national debt.” The rhetoric is effective, but the logic is flawed; not every American “owes” an equal share of the national debt.
April 28, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
In his weekly address, President Obama laid out his plans to address rising gas prices over the short and the long term. While there is no silver bullet to bring down prices right away, there are a few things we can do. This week, the Attorney General launched a task force dedicated to rooting out fraud or manipulations in the oil markets. The President called for finally ending the $4 billion in taxpayer money that the oil and gas companies receive annually. And, we need to continue safe, responsible production of oil at home. But in the long term, we need to invest in clean, renewable energy. That is why the President strongly disagrees with a proposal in Congress that cuts our investments in clean energy by 70 percent.
February 26, 2011 :: The Editors :: No Comment Yet
In a desperate move to force his controversial budget measure through the state legislature, Gov. Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin, is now threatening to fire 12,000 state employees. Critics say there is no budget shortfall significant enough to warrant this action, and that Walker is again using threats and aggression to force his legislation through. The bill he is backing would strip public employees of all collective bargaining rights.
February 21, 2011 :: The Editors :: 4 Comments
The protest rally opposing Gov. Walker’s draconian plan to eliminate collective bargaining rights is now entering its second week. 14 Democratic lawmakers remain outside the state, in boycott of the plan to impose Walker’s radical agenda on the people of Wisconsin. And today the news comes the last union that had not abandoned Walker, the state police union, has now done so.
February 20, 2011 :: Denver Lessing :: 4 Comments
The last week has seen mounting protests in Madison, Wisconsin, with crowds occupying the state capitol grounds swelling from 10,000 to 25,000 to 30,000, 40,000 and now on Saturday, 60,000. Schools have been closed, and university faculty and students are striking in order to participate in the protests. The demonstrators oppose Gov. Walker’s plan to strip public employees of all collective bargaining rights.
February 13, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Jody Williams believes that peace is defined by human (not national) security and that it must be achieved through sustainable development, environmental justice, and meeting people’s basic needs. To this end, she co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative, endorsed by six of seven living female Peace laureates. She chairs the effort to support activists, researchers, and others working toward peace, justice, and equality for women and thus humanity. Williams also continues to fight for the total global eradication of landmines.
February 8, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The people of Egypt today mark 14 days of nonviolent uprising against a brutal military regime that has ruled with near total power for 30 years. The peaceful protests are an astonishing coalition of educated and working-class, Muslim and Christian, secularist and religiously driven, old and young, male and female, and yet they are in fact a peaceful citizen-driven revolution against tyranny. The Mubarak regime has waged a brutal assault on peaceful demonstrators, human rights monitors and international press, and now there is concern the international attention may turn away.
January 31, 2011 :: Eva Scherson :: 6 Comments
Bashar al-Assad, who inherited the hardline regime that has ruled Syria for nearly four decades, and whose government imposed strict Internet controls after the beginning of the uprising in Egypt, has announced he will move to implement political reforms in his country. It is not clear how those reforms would affect his government’s control on power, or whether his office would be up for a national election, but the announcement is the latest sign of how pervasive an effect the Egyptian protest movement is having across the region.
January 25, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Of the nine justices on the Supreme Court, three opted not to attend the State of the Union address, each of them among the most conserative to sit on the Court in decades. Justice Alito will be in Hawaii for a speaking engagement—a feeble excuse given the fact the SOTU is a Constitutionally mandated ritual—, while Justices Scalia and Thomas, both recently stained by overtly partisan dealings, are also expected not to attend.
January 23, 2011 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Glenn Beck has once more taken extremist hate-speech to a new extreme, calling for the murder of liberals and progressives, whom he alleges are revolutionaries who are plotting an armed struggle to overthrow the United States government. It is the most unfounded and absurd of his conspiracy theories to date, and is clearly aimed at inciting a violent emotional reaction from people who are susceptible to the language of combat and armed intervention in the political realm.
January 22, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Liberal cable news powerhouse Keith Olbermann, one of the staunchest and most successful critics of the Republican party’s politics, has abruptly resigned from his show Countdown, on MSNBC. Olbermann’s success had driven MSNBC, which had dismissed then top-rated host Phil Donohue for criticizing the Iraq war effort, to re-orient its editorial stance toward the more progressive end of the political spectrum.
January 19, 2011 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
China’s president Hu Jintao is visiting the United States and will be the focus of several state-level functions, including a full state dinner and a special luncheon hosted by the vice president, Joe Biden. In the face of US demands that China remove rate controls and allow its currency to appreciate, Pres. Hu has said the yuan should be thought of as the world’s currency standard, with other currencies priced against its value.
January 12, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Imagine — imagine for a moment, here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that some day she, too, might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council. She saw public service as something exciting and hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted. I want to live up to her expectations. (Applause.) I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. (Applause.) All of us -– we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations. (Applause.)
January 11, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
George Will today has written a vicious criticism of any attempt to examine whether political rhetoric over the last election cycle was too violent, too full of vitriol and hostility. He flippantly leads with the remark that “It would be merciful if, when tragedies such as Tucson’s occur, there were a moratorium on sociology.” Will argues that conservatives who used inflammatory distortions and thinly veiled threats of violence should not be scrutinized for demonizing others, then leads with a demonization of the entire field of sociology as made up of “half-baked explanations”.
January 9, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 other people, six of whom have already, tragically, died from their injuries, the national political establishment (media, pressure groups and elected officials) has turned its attention to the perils of extremist and vitriolic rhetoric. We are being asked to consider whether the use of metaphorical violence (putting Rep. Giffords in the crosshairs, which both Sarah Palin and her 2010 opponent did) leads to actual violence, and while direct responsibility is not being alleged, the ethical obligation to honor our democracy with civil discourse must be considered.
January 9, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Christina-Taylor Green was born on 11 September 2001, a day of national tragedy for the United States, and she died yesterday in Tucson, in a hail of gunfire, as a result of the assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Christina-Taylor was seen by her family as a sign of hope, something beautiful born in the midst of a terrible tragedy.
January 9, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, of South Carolina, said the climate of hostile and vitriolic rhetoric that has overtaken much of the right is partly to blame for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Inglis urged his fellow Republicans to honor the principled public service of Giffords, saying “I hope what even the staunchest Republican could say is, ‘We’re all Democrats today for Gabby,’ and let’s just come together as a nation and figure out a way to get out of these problems”.
January 5, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
On Tuesday, Pres. Obama signed a raft of new legislation passed during the lame duck session of the 111th Congress. The huge number of signings capped a complicated two-year period of historic achievements and unprecedented Senate obstruction. Here’s a comprehensive list of the new laws Pres. Obama signed on the last day before the Republicans are sworn in as the new majority in the House of Representatives, from the White House…
November 24, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Glen Beck has always had a penchant for the outrageous, the egregious, the outright lie. He has made a career of smears, distortions, even verging on hate-rhetoric. His absurd assertion that his white followers should “take back the civil rights movement”, a phrase whose meaning no one could claim to fully understand, was perhaps a sign of near psychotic hubris. But his most recent “Puppetmaster” series, obsessively defaming George Soros, Holocaust survivor, billionaire philanthropist and democracy activist, as a ‘Nazi’ is a sign that Fox News has left all semblance of morality behind.
November 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The vicious, at times shameful, elections of 2010, full of more vitriol and more defamatory ads than any in memory, flush with record sums of corporate spending, and in an environment of deep economic malaise, have given the Republicans control of the House of Representatives, while Democrats retain control of the Senate. Rep. John Boehner [...]
October 31, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Amid allegations the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using membership dues and donations from foreign firms to wage an all-out ad-war against Democratic politics, at least 275 members are demanding the group cease its “punitive campaign” against anyone who supported the Affordable Care Act and reveal their sources and methods of funding the ads.
October 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear), hosted by superstar comic news anchors Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on the National Mall in Washington, DC, has drawn hundreds of thousands of people from across the country. Turnout was estimated at 300,000 beforehand, but images from the Mall show an edge-to-edge crowd filling the lawn from the stage at least as far back as the Washington Monument, meaning the total could well exceed 500,000 people.
October 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, writes: “Every variation of public service, including elective office, should be anchored by one complete and overriding truth and objective—to make a better world,” as part of a powerful statement urging civility and good-will from all who seek to involve themselves in the work of public service. Hagel’s open letter to the political world comes at a time when many election observers say the campaign of 2010 is the most degenerate and ill-intentioned in memory, where lies are prevailing over evidence and the ability to commit to effective and relentless distortion has become the most sought-after weapon of campaigners.
October 2, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The ‘One Nation Working Together’ rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC, is projected to gather 200,000 progressive activists, volunteers and supporters from around the country. There are sister rallies taking place across the country, as part of a collective effort to promote progressive values and “demand change”. The rally has been said to show the progressive base is highly energized and will mobilize to support Democrats and Pres. Obama’s reform agenda.
September 26, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
“One person alone cannot push an elephant.” The proverb tells us a great deal about how this film explores the crisis in human connection that comes with conflict. How pervasive, how multifaceted, how horrifying, to find that all sense of community has unraveled in the worst assaults and intensities of a save-no-soul total war. But from there, from the aftermath of this horror, even in the midst of it, Rose Mapendo would tell us we can plant the seeds of something better, nobler, more generous.
September 26, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Whenever legislation to price carbon starts to gain traction, the fossil fuel industry trots out this talking point: “It will kill jobs and ruin the economy.” In this paper, however, HotSpring Network founder and Citizens Climate Lobby volunteer Joseph Robertson ties together numerous reports and case studies to present a different picture, one in which the transition to clean energy will produce new jobs and provide a stimulus to the economy.
September 26, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Former Pres. Bill Clinton told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, in an interview before a live audience this week at the Clinton Global Initiative, in New York City, that a commitment to clean energy is required to drive job growth, cut unemployment and boost the economy. He noted that the four countries who are projected to beat their clean energy targets under the Kyoto Protocol —Denmark, Germany, Sweden and the U.K.— all have lower unemployment, and less economic inequality than the U.S., due to the green tech boom.
September 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In a speech to a packed room at Villanova University, during the university’s three-day celebration of the legacy and work of St. Thomas of Villanova —a celebration that includes scholarly presentations, community gatherings, this keynote address and a day of service in which thousands fan out across the region to do charitable work—, E.J. Dionne called for a politics rooted in conscience and compassion for our fellow human beings. The acclaimed journalist, scholar and Washington Post columnist rooted his talk in Catholic Social Teaching and spoke of an historical drive, in the US, toward comprehensive social justice.
August 31, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The founding charters of the United States of America were designed to create a system of democratic government in which terms and structures linked to historical exclusions and injustices could be redefined in order to serve a more democratic, more tolerant system of civil government. The argument regarding civil marriage services, provided by government, and the consequent legislative and fiscal benefits assigned to married couples, that traditional “definitions” of marriage should have a bearing on the ruling of the courts do not apply, because they do not allow for the specific Constitutional role of the judiciary: to interpret laws as applied to citizens equally and without prejudice.
August 8, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Justice Elena Kagan was sworn in today, taking two oaths, to serve a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the United States of America. Kagan, who served as Pres. Obama’s solicitor general, is now only the fourth woman ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court. She joins Justices Sonia Sotomayor (sworn in 2009) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (sworn in 1993). Kagan is the 112th Supreme Court justice, and her swearing in means one-third of the Court are women, for the first time in history.
July 24, 2010 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Fox News has adopted an all-campaign, all-the-time approach, in which it hires Republican politicians to pose as “reporters” and “anchors” and pushes mystical assumptions about market philosophy that have nothing to do with markets and everything to do with making it easy for those on top to stay there. Fox is steeped in a battle with its own intellectual values, fighting to portray itself as populist, while pushing the most elite-inducing economic philosophies and arguing consistently against actions that would defend ordinary people against unaccountable power.
July 23, 2010 :: Riga Listin :: 4 Comments
Andrew Breitbart —a fake journalist whose overt political bias is not only self-declared, but is seething with bile and contempt— is defending his use of rigged reporting and character assassination in a deliberate attempt to distort the truth and sow racist hate. Breitbart posted a clip of a video on his blog, in which USDA official Shirley Sherrod, explained how she came to see beyond race and transcend the temptation to judge people’s character or motives based on the color of their skin.
July 21, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The story of Shirley Sherrod illustrates how injustice and prejudice will flood the scene whenever we give in to a pathological aversion to nuance. Our media culture, our politics, the headline-obsessed pseudo-reporting that passes for “mainstream journalism”, allow loud-mouthed bigots and propagandists like Andrew Breitbart to pervert our free press and ruin lives. Fortunately, the media picked up the mistake, and the White House responded to Sherrod’s resigning with a call for a thorough investigation of the facts surrounding the incident.
July 17, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Buckminster Fuller was one of the 20th century’s most visionary architects, whose philosophy of socially responsible planning and design has influenced cutting-edge technology research and public policy the world over, through the UN’s development programs and pioneering entrepreneurship aimed at lifting billions out of poverty. His vision was, in his own words, “To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”
July 2, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
With Democrats and Republicans fighting each other from hardened rhetorical gun turrets, taking for granted the other side’s evil and intransigence, Pres. Obama’s first 18 months in office have been characterized by a near total lack of cooperation from moderates in the opposition.Republicans are talking like radicals and insurgents, but claiming to be traditional conservatives, and Democrats are struggling to remain populist while tasked with actually governing.
June 5, 2010 :: Carmen Visna :: 3 Comments
The environmental catastrophe resulting from BP’s blown-out deepwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst seen in the US, but Ecuador’s ongoing battle with pervasive, persistent toxic contamination relating to Texaco’s operations in the remote Amazon is the worst oil-related environmental disaster the world has ever seen. In a once-pristine corner of the Ecuadoran Amazon rainforest, Texaco dumped billions of gallons of petroleum waste byproduct, contaminating groundwater and ruining the local environment irreparably.
June 5, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
On 4 June 1989, the Chinese military moved into Tiananmen Square to disperse a long-running student and citizen protest in favor of democratic reforms. The military were reportedly ordered to use deadly force and opened fire, killing an unknown number of unarmed civilians. The anonymous man in the above photo became known around the world as an icon of human rights, when he stopped a column of tanks by standing in their way, a moral and human challenge to the military crackdown.
June 4, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
It’s not just the intense vibration, noise pollution and toxic contaminants associated with trucking that we need to address, but the broader environmental fallout from depending so heavily on a petroleum-based combustion-centric mode of transport. Heavy overland transport vehicles demand a massive amount of power to move them from place to place; advanced battery technologies may soon allow us to power them using electricity, but we need to build the infrastructure to produce, store and transport all that green energy.
June 2, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Reports from around the Gulf of Mexico region of the southern US suggest the spreading oil slick from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well is now washing ashore not only in Louisiana, but also in neighboring states. CNN reports sporadic accounts of oil washing ashore on the “sandy beaches”, popular with tourists, in western Florida. The well has now been gushing oil uncontrolled for 44 days, and BP has lost 1/3 of its total share value since the drilling rig explosion on 20 April.
June 2, 2010 :: Eva Scherson :: One Comment
The humanitarian aid vessel known as the Rachel Corrie —named for the American activist killed when she refused to move from an attempt to block the Israeli military (IDF) from a bulldozing operation— is now en route to Gaza, and will likely face the Israeli military blockade, which seeks to maintain an absolute embargo on any cargo and any persons entering Gaza except by way of the IDF. Israel has said it will not “seek confrontation”, but it will “defend Israeli citizens threatened by this terror from the sea”.
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