Inequality

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks: “Facebook Poll Hilariously Backfires On Senator” Crooks & Liars writes: Ted Cruz, Don’t Ask The Question If You Don’t Want To Know The Answer (via http://crooksandliars.com) Ted Cruz thought he could rile up his followers on Facebook by posting the following “straw poll”: Quick poll: Obamacare was signed into […]

Afghanistan

Ft. Hood & the True Cost of Iraq & Afghanistan Wars: Nearly 1 mn traumatized: PTSD by the Numbers

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The Ft. Hood shooter who left 3 victims dead yesterday had been being assessed for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He had served for 4 months at the tail end of the Iraq War in 2011 and suffered from anxiety and depression. A staggering 1 million veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have […]

Economy

Obamacare Enrolls 7.1 Million: But Will the haters ever stop hating?

Juan Cole

LAST week, while watching videos on YouTube, I was repeatedly served with an advertisement in which a mournful woman informed me that unfortunately, Obamacare “just doesn’t work.” This left me bemused, since I live in a country where a variety of Obamacare…

Economy

Walmart Admits that its Business Model Requires Employees to Depend on Food Stamps

contributors

Critics cite irony of annual report filing: ‘This is a company that everywhere it goes it creates poverty’ (By Lauren McCauley) [ Walmart employees are known to be among biggest Medicaid and Food Stamp recipients in over half of the states. – JRIC] Although a notorious recipient of "corporate welfare," Walmart has now admitted that […]

Economy

We’re not Envious, we’re Disappointed: US Firms Stash $2 Trillion in Foreign Tax Havens, Costing us Billions

contributors

(By Michael Winship) Here on our whimsical island off the coast of the Eastern Seaboard, we have a company called Manhattan Mini Storage that is as famous for the semi-snarky wit of its billboards and subway posters as it is for the spaces it rents to we New Yorkers who live in apartments so small […]

Africa

A World built on Slavery

contributors

(By Greg Grandin) Many in the United States were outraged by the remarks of conservative evangelical preacher Pat Robertson, who blamed Haiti’s catastrophic 2010 earthquake on Haitians for selling their souls to Satan. Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble — as many as 300,000 died — when Robertson went on TV and gave […]

Energy

How Iraq Vets against War & Peace Groups stopped Senate bid to derail Iran Talks

contributors

(By Robert Clack) In 2013, an unprecedented diplomatic breakthrough happened when the United States and Iran, along with other world powers, reached an interim agreement to lift sanctions over a long-standing dispute regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Not content with allowing for peace, on December 19th New Jersey Senator Menendez (D) and Senator Kirk (R), supported […]

Crime

Race Inequality in America by Graph, from Crime Sentencing to Income

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Most death sentences are handed out for killing white people, even though African-Americans make up 50% of murder victims (they are only 12% of the population). So if an African-American male had fired ten shots into the SUV of some white suburban kids playing their music too loud, killing one of them, […]

Barack Obama

Why Pres. Obama wants to Raise Minimum Wage: 49 mn Americans Food Insecure

Juan Cole

(Via PRNewswire) The State of Hunger in America: Feeding America Issues Annual Report (via PR Newswire) CHICAGO, Jan. 27, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In connection with President Barack Obama’s . . . annual State of the Union address, Feeding America has issued its annual “State of Hunger in America,” assessing the prevalence of food insecurity and… […]