Economy

(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 […]

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

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…

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

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 […]

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

(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 […]

Barack Obama

Is Pope Francis good for the Democrats? Obama in the Vatican

(By Juan Cole) Could enormous popularity of Pope Francis spill over into American politics? Pope Francis is worried about inequality, a Democratic Party issue, and his statements and actions on the subject are a stunning rebuke to “evangelical Catholics” such as Paul Ryan, who tend rather to celebrate economic inequality or to deny it or […]

Domestic Surveillance

Invasion of the Corporate Data Snatchers: The Internet of Things

(By Catherine Crump and Matthew Harwood) Estimates vary, but by 2020 there could be over 30 billion devices connected to the Internet. Once dumb, they will have smartened up thanks to sensors and other technologies embedded in them and, thanks to your machines, your life will quite literally have gone online. The implications are revolutionary. […]

Climate Change

Climate Change is hitting us Now & will only Worsen: When will We Start Acting Like Adults?

(By Tom Giesen) Americans tell us through a recent Gallop poll that upward of 65% of them know global warming is happening. However, only 36% feel that it will pose a serious threat to their way of life. But that conclusion is dead wrong; our way of life is changing dramatically. The physical evidence across […]

Gaza’s Palestinians, Besieged by Israel, turn to Solar Power