Violence against Indigenous women is “escalating like never before,” the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) has warned. A series of tragedies have rocked the city of Vancouver (unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands) in recent months, including the discovery of the body of a 14-year-old Indigenous child, Noelle O’Soup, in May. Continue reading
A Louisiana woman denied an abortion despite carrying a fetus with a fatally flawed skull revealed Wednesday that she traveled nearly 2,500 miles round trip to New York City in order to undergo the procedure. Continue reading
It’s easy to become discouraged about the state of our nation. Continue reading
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday paused before proceeding to her line of questioning at a House Oversight Committee hearing, expressing shock over the treatment Republican Rep. Clay Higgins subjected an expert witness, Raya Salter, to moments earlier. Continue reading
The price of electricity has risen astronomically in Europe over the last two years: by four times over the previous year and 10 times over the last two years. The European Union (EU) has claimed that this rise in prices is due to the increase in the price of gas in the international market and Russia not supplying enough gas. This raises the critical question: Why should, for example, the German electricity price rise four times when natural gas contributes around one-seventh of its electricity production? Why does the UK, which generates 40 percent of its electricity from renewables and nuclear plants, and produces half the natural gas it consumes, also see a steep rise in the price of electricity? Continue reading
It is vital to free ourselves from belief in the systems of white supremacy and imperialism that are inculcated in the educational system and are affirmed and amplified by the media and establishment opinion. The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II puts the need for political and psychological liberation in high relief. We are encouraged to admire an anachronistic monarchy, and are exhorted to join in mourning an individual and a system that have caused great harm to Black and other oppressed people around the world. Continue reading
Sen. Lindsey Graham garnered condemnation from rights groups on Tuesday after brushing off a question from a woman who shared her personal story of a pregnancy that she found out was nonviable at 16 weeks, at a press conference where the South Carolina Republican proposed a nationwide 15-week abortion ban. Continue reading
Whatever your feelings about former President Trump, there are reasons to be skeptical when government officials say it was necessary to raid his Florida home to recover classified documents that threatened national security. Continue reading
GOP U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker on Wednesday reaffirmed his support for a national abortion ban, saying that he would vote for the policy if elected in November and if Republicans regain control of the upper chamber. Continue reading
For generations, workers have been punished by corporate bosses for watching the clock. But now, the corporate clock is watching workers. Continue reading
Geoffrey Berman has a new book out, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department,” laying out chapter and verse of how Bill Barr corrupted the Department of Justice on behalf of Donald Trump. Barr’s coverups for Trump range, in my read, from criminal activity to treason. Continue reading
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced legislation Tuesday that would ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a proposal that reproductive rights defenders warned is a signal of the draconian policy agenda the GOP intends to pursue if it retakes Congress in the upcoming November midterms. Continue reading
Have you heard of Jaz Brisack, Liz Fong-Jones and Chris Smalls? Continue reading
US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) doesn’t like ranked choice voting. It’s “a scam to rig elections,” he tweeted on August 31, after Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Republican Sarah Palin in a special election for US House in Alaska. “60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat ‘won.’” Continue reading
Those who wish to perpetuate the failed public policy of cannabis criminalization have lost the hearts and minds of the American public. And they know it. Continue reading
In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Führer. Continue reading
“We are at a precipice and we’re counting on the American people to come through—and I have hope that people will realize that we have to turn this clock back.” Continue reading
Anyone in the UK who imagined they lived in a representative democracy—one in which leaders are elected and accountable to the people—will be in for a rude awakening over the next days and weeks. Continue reading
As the world knows, the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8 at the age of 96, kicking off weeks of national mourning and ceremonies of transition. Continue reading
Across the country, an ongoing education controversy has erupted around queerness. Continue reading
The history of abortion in the U.S. guided some of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Alito argued that abortion has never been a “deeply rooted” constitutional right in the United States. Continue reading
With eight weeks to go until the midterm elections, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the state’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, called on physicians on Friday to weigh in on the threat his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, poses to reproductive rights if he wins a Senate seat. Continue reading
Prospects for Democrats winning in November in the House and Senate have picked up recently. Nonetheless, political pundits are still not counting on the Democrats to win the House of Representatives. Candidates have eight weeks to refine their policies, messages, and strategies to energize and mobilize voters. Continue reading
France’s ongoing affair with Algeria reflects the complicated relationship it has with many of its former colonies in Africa. The French first began to establish trading posts on the Senegalese coast in the early 17th century and launched several expeditions against Barbary pirates and slave traders in North Africa in the mid-to-late 17th century. The French invasion of Ottoman Algiers in 1830 then transformed France’s relationship with Africa and launched the beginning of French colonialism into the interior of the continent. Continue reading
Many young stamp collectors, like myself, discovered who Queen Elizabeth was after constantly seeing her side portrait or silhouette on stamps from what seemed like everyplace in the world: from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to Malta, Tanganyika, Gold Coast, Bechuanaland, the Gilbert Islands, and Hong Kong. Crowned two years before I was born, it is amazing to reflect back to how many times I encountered something or someone having to do with the Queen. From living in one of her many realms – Barbados — for over two years to my first ever trip abroad to England in 1975, there was no getting away from the fact that Elizabeth was not only the Queen of England, but also of scores of other vestiges of the old empire. In addition, she was the head of the Commonwealth of Nations, many of which I had the occasion to visit after they had become republics. One could not but notice the high regard many of their citizens had for their former monarch or royal protector, whether it was in India, Cyprus, Uganda, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei, Sikkim, or Fiji. Continue reading
Former Brazilian President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) runs about on stage at the Latin America Memorial in São Paulo. He was there on August 22, 2022, speaking at a book launch featuring photographs by Ricardo Stuckert about Lula’s trips around the world when he was the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010. Lula is a man with a great deal of energy. He recounts the story of when he was in Iran with his Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in 2010, trying to mediate and end the conflict imposed by the United States over Iran’s nuclear energy policy. Lula managed to secure a nuclear deal in 2010 that would have prevented the ongoing pressure campaign that Washington is conducting against Tehran. There was relief in the air. Then, Lula said, “Obama pissed outside the pot.” According to Lula, then-U.S. President Barack Obama did not accept the deal and crushed the hard work of the Brazilian leadership in bringing all sides to an agreement. Continue reading
The latest “Nuclear Power Renaissance” is on the brink of creating radioactive Dark Ages in Ukraine, California and at more than 400 other atomic reactors worldwide. Continue reading
The revelation that Donald Trump had stored in Mar-a-Lago Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information/Special Access Program (TS/SCI/SAP) documents on foreign nuclear capabilities, which came on the heels of his owned-and-operated dime store federal judge in Fort Pierce, Florida ruling in his favor on halting the government’s damage assessment on Trump’s treason, brought back some vivid memories of 2003. Continue reading
“As soon as I left prison, I went to Nael’s grave. It is adorned with the colors of the Palestinian flag and verses from the Holy Quran. I told my little brother how much I loved and appreciated him, and that, one day, we would meet again in paradise.” Continue reading
Some worship at the feet of deities, at the feet of gurus, at the feet of dead prophets, at the feet of stone idols, in churches, in temples, in mosques, in Mecca. Continue reading
Donald Trump, the New York real estate mobster who fled Gotham City for Florida during his twice-impeached presidency to avoid the arm of justice in the Empire State, needed a corrupt and inexperienced federal judge to stymie the Justice Department’s investigation of his theft of thousands of highly-classified and other official documents from the White House. He found one in Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon, a right-wing Federalist Society Cuban-American. Continue reading
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Who is raising our children? Liberating tweens from corporate tentacles
Posted on September 19, 2022 by Ralph Nader
Consider the harmful, grasping tentacles by corporations around the bodies and minds of youngsters through relentless direct marketing that bypasses parental authority. Now comes my sister Claire Nader’s new book You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination and Intellect of Tweens. Continue reading →