Voter suppression

By Jon Queally, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – ‘Injunction will help make sure not a single voters’ voice is unlawfully taken away,’ says Rev. William Barber II of the NC NAACP. Granting hopeful reprieve to thousands of potentially disenfranchised voters ahead of Tuesday’s election, a federal judge late Friday issued an […]

Barack Obama

Ghosts of King George III: Top 5 Things that threaten American Independence Today

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The things that irked the residents of the Thirteen Colonies about British rule have reemerged from other quarters to threaten American democracy. The colonists minded being ruled arbitrarily by British-appointed officials, some of them corrupt. They minded not being represented in parliament even though that body […]

African-Americans

Baltimore Protests: What The Media Isn’t Showing You

contributors

AJ+ | – “Burning buildings, shattered glass, riot police: This looping portrait of Baltimore – on TV and online – has become the defining narrative of protests spurred by the death of Freddie Gray. But beyond sensational headlines, his death has also brought community, faith and art to the front line.” AJ+: “Baltimore Protests: What […]

African-Americans

African-Americans still struggle for Full Citizenship Rights, Voting Rights

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – 50 years after the Selma march to Montgomery, African-Americans still face substantial impediments to their full citizenship in the United States. We all saw the scene in the film “Selma” where the Oprah Winfrey character has to pass an arbitrary test to vote (and is always failed by […]

African-Americans

In New Gilded Age, Social Protest dominates Academy Awards Ceremony

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – If social and economic inequality were a mine, and if America were deep in this mine with a canary in tow, the canary would long since have expired. Some 400 billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of Americans. We lived through a year of dramatic incidents […]

Economy

How Public Power can get Big Money out of Politics & Defeat Plutocrats

contributors

Bill Moyers | — Bill Moyers: “How Public Power Can Defeat Plutocrats” via BillMoyers.com “Government has become a clearinghouse for corporations and plutocrats with deep pockets to buy the politicians who grease the wheels for lucrative contracts and easy regulation. It’s all pay for play, and look the other way. According to the watchdog Sunlight […]

Inequality

How Secret Millionaire Donors Bought the Midterms with Dark Money Superpacs

contributors

by Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica In the final weeks before this year’s elections, a super PAC called Key Questions, Key Answers started buying TV ads across Pennsylvania attacking Tom Wolf, the Democratic candidate for governor. “Don’t vote for a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the narrator says in one of the ads as a sheep with Wolf’s […]

Democracy

Bernie Sanders on Breaking Big Money’s Grip on Elections (Moyers)

contributors

Bill Moyers: “Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent senator, is angry about what he sees as big money’s wholesale purchase of political power. It’s a grave threat, he believes, not only to our electoral process but to democracy itself. Two weeks ago, Sanders visited a town hall meeting in Richmond, California, to fire up supporters of Mayor […]

Constitution

GOP Voter Suppression: Comedian Louis Black says F#%! it!

contributors

ACLU “At a photo shoot with ACLU’s Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho, ACLU voting rights ambassador Lewis Black gets so f#%!in’ tired of politicians trying to deny people the right to vote. The ACLU is fighting against bad voter suppression laws across the country. The rules of voting are still in flux in many […]