Top Ten Things Congress Should Get Done This Fall (and Beyond)
Jasmine Tucker, Truthout: Lawmakers return to work on September 8 after a five-week recess – many campaigning for re-election in November. Congress has a lot on its plate and only a dozen legislative days before the election to get them done. Here are 10 things lawmakers should tackle this fall.
The United States Was Welcoming to White European Immigrants, But Not to Peoples of Color
Mark Karlin, Truthout: In her book that explores the history of unfair US immigration policy, Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal, Aviva Chomsky explains how prejudice and the exploitation of inexpensive labor has increasingly shaped immigration law and lives.
St. Louis Police Shot 16 Before Michael Brown in 2014
Paul Gottinger and Ken Klipperstein, Truthout: Ferguson area police shot 16 people before shooting unarmed teenager Michael Brown. In most cases in which race was known, the victim was black.
Cashing In on Carbon: How Taxpayer Dollars Greenwash Dirty Energy
Anna Simonton, Oil Change International: The strategy of capturing carbon emissions only to unearth more fossil fuels has paradoxically made its way to the forefront of the federal government’s plans for tackling climate change, thanks in part to support from a plethora of pollutive industries.
Climate Alarms Ringing, UN Fails To Act
Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance: There is no question that the climate crisis is here and is accelerating at a faster pace than predicted. Its effects are widespread and dangerous, yet real solutions are being suppressed.
Fast Food Strikes Are Back, Bigger Than Ever
Terrance Heath, Campaign For America’s Future: Last week, workers in 150 cities took to the streets to demand livable wages for themselves and their families, the right to organize and a better economy for all of us.
Michael Sam: Out of the Closet, Out of the NFL?
Dave Zirin, The Nation: While the NFL’s first openly gay player, Michael Sam, has been picked up by the Dallas Cowboys, the league’s teams had shown hesitance to sign the talented defensive end, supposedly fearing his presence would create a “distraction.”
Josh Davis, Grassroots Economic Organizing: Science shows that rigid hierarchies are bad for the health of everyone in them – except those at the very top. But the good news is, cooperative values and cooperative action are the prescription for combatting these negative effects.
The Socialist Alternative to a World of Injustice
Danny Katch, Socialist Worker: For a more fair and equitable world free of the brutality of racism and disasters like climate change and constant war, we need to struggle for a different world.
Today’s Air Force Would Have Rejected Pat Tillman and Jesus?
Mikey Weinstein, AlterNet: The US Air Force made it mandatory to recite “so help me God’ in its official reenlistment and commissioning oaths, i.e. officers had better repent and swear an oath to “God” or be gone.
Joshua Weiner reports Lyme patients will hold a silent vigil at the New York Times headquarters to protest media silence about Lyme disease; Lawrence Davidson candidly asks whether Israel’s government policies are good for the Jews; Glyn Moody describes Guatemala’s challenge to the so-called “Monsanto Law” written into a trade agreement with the US; Andrew Smolski discusses Latin America as the growing force challenging US global hegemony; Robert Neustadt reflects on how his students have observed the overlap of music and the human tragedy at the US-Mexico border; Jubilee USA announces the UN will vote on a convention that could stop predatory hedge funds from interfering with countries’ financial policies; Graham Peebles reports on the unjust detention and treatment of Ethiopian activist and British citizen Andargachew Tsige; Jan Lundberg decries the modern American celebration of Labor Day as a joke given the decline in workers’ rights and organizing; and more.
BuzzFlash
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Atlanta School Cheating Trial Has Teachers Facing Prison
Read the Article at the Los Angeles Times
Michael Brown Was Shot While His Hands Were Up, New Witness Confirms
Read the Article at Crooks and Liars
Shut California’s Fukushima: Diablo Must Go
Just 13, and Working Risky 12-Hour Shifts in the Tobacco Fields
Read the Article at The New York Times
In Shadow of Oil Boom, North Dakota Farmers Fight Contamination
Read the Article at Al Jazeera America
Hillary Clinton Praises a Guy With Lots of Blood on His Hands
Read the Article at Mother Jones
Big Banks Still a Risk
Read the Article at The New York Times
