Neoliberalism

( Inequality.org ) – If Dustin Hoffman should ever do a remake of The Graduate, the classic 1967 film that launched his famed cinematic career, what might be the 2020s update for that film’s most iconic exchange? A good many of us still fondly remember that poolside party scene. A 21-year-old “Benjamin” gets pulled aside […]

Campaign Finance

A Republican Tried to Introduce a Commonsense Gun Law. Then the Gun Lobby Got Involved

ProPublica

By Megan O’Matz | – ( ProPublica ) – Cole Wist was a Republican state House member in Colorado with an A grade from the NRA. Then, in 2018, he supported a red flag law, sponsoring a bill to allow guns to be taken away — temporarily — from people who pose an immediate threat […]

Guns

6 Charts show key role Firearms Corporations play in America’s Gun Culture

The Conversation

By Michael Siegel, Tufts University | – Americans have blamed many culprits, from mental illness to inadequate security, for the tragic mass shootings that are occurring with increasing frequency in schools, offices and theaters across the U.S. The latest, which occurred on May 24, 2022, at a Texas elementary school and left at least 19 […]

Guns

How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 Ban on Machine Guns to blocking nearly all firearm Restrictions Today

The Conversation

By Robert Spitzer, State University of New York College at Cortland | – The mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days apart, are stirring the now-familiar national debate over guns seen after the tragic 2012 and 2018 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, […]

Far Right

When it comes to Guns, the US is a Third World Country run by Corporate Lobbyists for a Profit

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 21 are dead in another mass shooting, including 19 schoolchildren. The white slavers of the Old Souoth used to call US slavery our “peculiar institution.” Nowadays we have another peculiar institution, the gun culture. And we are peculiar. When it comes to gun violence, the United States is less like […]

Carbon Footprint

Extinction Rebellion inspires Shell Consultant to Resign over Company’s Bad Faith on Climate Emergency, Call for More Resignations

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a letter of resignation to the Shell executive committee that she posted to her Linkedin page, Caroline Dennett, the director of the Clout consultancy, explained that she was leaving because Shell is “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “is not implementing steps to mitigate the […]

African-Americans

Under DeSantis, Republican “Child Identity” McCarthyism comes for Mickey Mouse

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Gov. Ron DeSantis’s attack on the Disney Corporation may seem odd, coming from a pro-business governor in a state where Disney is one of the largest employers. But DeSantis is pushing back at Disney on behalf of big capital, in a roundabout way. The entertainment corporations are problematic for the […]

Epidemics

The Poor at the Crossroads: The First and Worst Hit by Pandemics of Every Sort

Liz Theoharis

( Tomdispatch.com ) – The 54th anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., just passed. Dr. King was shot down while organizing low-wage sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. At that time, he was building the Poor People’s Campaign, an effort to organize America’s poor into a force to be reckoned with. In […]

Epidemics

Americans in poorer Counties have died of COVID at Double the rate of Wealthier Counties

OtherWords

By Karen Dolan | – ( Otherwords ) – As our country approaches 1 million deaths from COVID-19, it can feel impossible to wrap our heads around such a devastating figure. But it’s essential if we want to treat the pre-existing conditions that made it so deadly. In the beginning, many thought the pandemic would […]