Best of TomDispatch: Michelle Alexander, The Age of Obama as a Racial Nightmare | TomDispatch

Unpleasant, unbelievable war on drugs, started and pursued for politics, has created this monster problem
Posted by Michael Butler, Monday, March 26, 2012

Walking While Black: The Killing of Trayvon Martin | Common Dreams

Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, March 24, 2012

Vanity Fair – Lost Cause: The South’s one-crop political culture – and why it won’t change anytime soon

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Saturday, March 24, 2012

Washington Post – Eugene Robinson: Trayvon Martin and dangerous times for black men

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Friday, March 23, 2012

Teju Cole: The White Savior Industrial Complex

Cole in The Atlantic ..

One song we hear too often is the one in which Africa serves as a backdrop for white fantasies of conquest and heroism. From the colonial project to Out of Africa to The Constant Gardener and 'Kony 2012', Africa has provided a space onto which white egos can conveniently be projected .. Joseph Kony is no longer in Uganda and he is no longer the threat he was, but he is a convenient villain for those who need a convenient villain. What Africa needs more pressingly than Kony's indictment is more equitable civil society, more robust democracy, and a fairer system of justice. This is the scaffolding from which infrastructure, security, healthcare, and education can be built .. If Americans want to care about Africa, maybe they should consider evaluating American foreign policy, which they already play a direct role in through elections, before they impose themselves on Africa itself.

Cole is a writer from Nigeria and the winner of this year's PEN/Hemingway Award for his novel "Open City" - mab .. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Friday, March 23, 2012

NYT (10): National News

Gay marriage survives New Hampshire repeal; SCOTUS (i) expands rights of accused re plea bargains, (ii) questions First Amendment claim of man who accosted Cheney, (iii) allows eminent domain claim against EPA; With even some Republicans maligning House GOP budget plan, Dems see wedge; Students in AR band together to create PAC to protect Dems; Study shows how House members benefit personally; Super-tight race for NYS Senate seat; White teenager who drove over and killed black MS man gets life sentence; NY Jets get Tim Tebow.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, March 22, 2012

NYT Editorial & Op-Eds (7)

"The N.Y.P.D. should not interpret its post-9/11 mandate as a license to run roughshod over the Constitution" (Editorial); "A rampage in Afghanistan calls attention to a potentially lethal combination of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury" (Guest Op-Ed); "Critics and defenders argue about how much of what Anonymous does should be treated as political protest — or strictly as crime" (Guest Op-Ed); "On Act Up’s 25th anniversary, its band of early AIDS warriors deserves thanks" (Bruni); "Mixed-race African-Americans have an ethical obligation to identify as black" (Guest Op-Ed); "We evolved to be tribal, and politics is a competition among coalitions of tribes" (Guest Op-Ed); "Are Elvis, Marilyn, Hitler, Anne Frank and 600,000 Holocaust victims trapped in a 'Spooky Mormon Heaven Dream?'" (Dowd)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, March 18, 2012

Stealing From The Mouth of Public Education to Feed the Prison Industrial Complex | Common Dreams

Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, February 29, 2012

NYT (10): National News

Improving economy lifts Obama; GOP caves on payroll tax and unemployment; NYPD stop-and-frisks at record high; Voter fraud may be urban legend, but voter rolls are in disarray; FCC puts kibosh on broadband plan due to conflict with GPS; NYS redistricting plan to be reviewed by court panel; NJ Senate passes gay marriage bill, despite gov's promised veto; New Obama plan re contraceptives splits Catholics; When environmental groups take money from "the enemy"; NYC Transit chief wisely opposes food ban bill.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Wednesday, February 15, 2012

NYT (4): National News

Occupy Movement 2.0; Bishops reject Obama compromise on contraception; Tax on pot becoming lifeline for some cities and states; A book on "the state of White America."
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, February 12, 2012

Public Integrity

Posted by Michael Hamilton, Tuesday, January 24, 2012

NYT Editorial, Op-Eds, Letters (11)

"Americans spend more than patients in any other country, but with very mixed results" (Editorial); "Drones are blurring the civilian and military roles in war and circumventing the constitutional mandate for authorizing it" (Guest Op-Ed); "If only a presidential candidate would adopt this four-part agenda, he would surely be the winner on election night in November" (Friedman); "'Porgy and Bess' supplies a prism through which African-Americans have viewed their history" (Nocera); "No longer will only men be allowed to sell a bra to a woman clothed head-to-toe in an abaya" (Guest Op-Ed); "Could 2012 be a race between two powerful victims yearning to be lonely at the top?" (Dowd); "In both parties, there is a long tradition of underwhelming nominees" (Douthat); "If liberals care about middle-class salaries, public education and other state-funded services, they need to care about controlling health care costs as much as conservatives do" (Guest Op-Ed); "Lessons from Paula Deen on indulgence and its consequences" (Bruni); "It's 2012, and let's face it, the old way of sizing up candidates on the left-to-right spectrum just will not do" (Guest Op-Ed); "Sunday Dialogue: State Laws on Unions" (Letters)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, January 22, 2012

NYT Op-Eds (2)

"Gingrich's plan seems to be to appeal to an ugly, gut-level anger and animosity among a sizable portion of the Republican electorate" (Blow); "Thanks to Newt Gingrich, sex was very much on the minds of South Carolina voters this week" (Collins)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, January 21, 2012

 ”My Country ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying”:  By Buffy Sainte-Marie

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, January 19, 2012

The land is… – Films from Survival International

from zia sheilds
Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, January 19, 2012

NYT Op-Eds (6)

"Martin Luther King would see a nation that judges people by the size of their paychecks" (Krugman); "It's obvious that governing was never the point of the Tea Party" (Egan); "The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an international as well as an American icon. But his legacy was used to serve a range of purposes" (Guest Op-Ed); "An influential critic says banking regulations are too complex, and she offers some solutions" (Nocera); "As Jon Huntsman exits the presidential race, he reverts to familiar partisan hypocrisy" (Bruni); "On a visit to South Carolina just days before the primary, getting a feel for what people on the scene are thinking about the candidates" (Brooks)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, January 17, 2012

NYT (11): Editorials, Op-Eds, Letters

"Mitt Romney and the Republican Party fear talking about income inequality in the campaign" (Editorial); "In a sound ruling, the National Labor Relations Board concluded that employees’ federal right to engage in concerted action trumps any arbitration agreement that bars group claims" (Editorial); "The Tea Party’s influence is diminishing as conservatives seem to be inching toward nominating Mitt Romney" (Guest Op-Ed); "Presidential candidates are just like you. You plus multiple homes and millions" (Bruni); "There has yet to be any discussion over the one quality that has subtly driven Mitt Romney's candidacy: his race" (Guest Op-Ed); "The private equity revolution of Mitt Romney and others helped keep America competitive, but the human costs must be acknowledged, too" (Douthat); "In fashion next fall: enigmatic, elusive, analytical Harvard grads" (Dowd); "For those in the news media who covered the slow-motion collapse of the Soviet Union, this moment feels familiar" (Guest Op-Ed); "As a new government takes shape, Egyptians are finding their voices again and rediscovering their neighbors" (Friedman); "Medieval Europe had barbarian hordes, famine and plague. We have millions of people on Xanax" (Guest Op-Ed); "Sunday Dialogue: Mobility and Inequality in Today’s America" (Letters)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, January 15, 2012

NYT Op-Eds (6)

"Mitt Romney says that President Obama has been a job destroyer, while he was a job-creating businessman. But those claims border on dishonesty" (Krugman); "Big surprise. Some of the Republican presidential candidates are once again using race to pander to the right" (Blow); "Pro forma Senate sessions present an unconstitutional interference with the president’s irreducible power and duty" (Tribe); "Rick Santorum’s ideas may need some massaging, but their roots offer an important seedbed for a new 21st-century philosophy of government" (Brooks); "Good news, people! For our latest meeting of the Presidential Primary Book Club, I read Rick Santorum’s 'It Takes a Family' so you won’t have to" (Collins); "Rather than bringing power to secular revolutionaries, the Arab Spring is producing flowers of a decidedly Islamist hue" (Guest Op-Ed)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, January 7, 2012

NYT (3): National News

DOJ blocks SC voter law; Keystone XL probably dead - for now; No surprise as internal Pentagon review shows no "fault" in using military personnel in media.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, December 24, 2011

NYT (9): National News

Finally, it's the GOP that caves; Once again, FCC looks to ease media ownership rule; Judge blocks large part of SC immigration law; After death of G.I., military "hazing" is investigated; NYC's campaign finance law survives another challenge; Black women enlisting at remarkably high rate; Unseasonably warm weather has drawback - no snow for skiing; Man sentenced to 14 years for arson in response to election of Obama; Earthquake damage to Washington Monument more extensive than initially thought.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, December 23, 2011

NYT Editorials, Op-Eds Letters (11)

"Medicare reforms could save hundreds of billions of dollars without scrapping the system" (Editorial); "Alabama’s stance on its extremist immigration law is shifting from defiance to damage control, as Gov. Robert Bentley admits that the law needs fixing" (Editorial); "Should President Obama sell $53 million worth of arms to Bahrain when it continues to violently repress its citizens?" (Kristof); "Leaders are learning that war no longer pays. And more important, there is a growing repugnance toward institutionalized violence" (Guest Op-Ed); "Environmental groups are in a stage of transition toward local, grass-roots efforts" (Guest Op-Ed); "As a black man in my 20s, I’ve incorporated into my daily life the sense that I might be pushed against a wall or thrown to the ground by a police officer at any time" (Guest Op-Ed); "Many politicians are full of themselves. Gingrich is overstuffed" (Bruni); "Art reflecting life or life reflecting art? The end of the Iraq war and Season 1 of 'Homeland' have everyone on edge" (Dowd); "Looking for some leaders with the know-how and willingness to govern from the bottom up" (Friedman); "Why so many Christians loved Christopher Hitchens" (Douthat); "When Marijuana is Used as Medicine" (Letters)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, December 18, 2011

NYT (8): National News

IL court reverses conviction of 19-year inmate; What's going on with the air in the Southwest?; A book on "debt" by the man at the forefront of the Occupy movement; A new book on William F. Buckley Jr.; New books by Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice; A new book on African American history by Henry Louis Gates Jr.; and a book on the 70s music scene at CBGB's et al.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, December 11, 2011

Democracy Now: Mumia Abu-Jamal Spared Death Penalty After Prosecutors Drop 30-Year Bid for Execution

Posted by Mike Blaxill, Thursday, December 8, 2011

NYT (13): National News

Blacks hit hardest by lack of public sector jobs; Increase in "near poor" means increase in line for free school lunches; Support for TP is waning; Barney Frank will retire; Cain may throw in the towel; Judge rejects settlement agreement b/w SEC and Citigroup; Suit to void NYS marriage act can go forward; SCOTUS to hear fairness in sentencing re crack vs. powder cocaine; FTC settles privacy issue with Facebook; NY City Council to sue Bloomberg over noxious rule re homeless; Jackson doctor gets four years; Ken Russell dies.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Wednesday, November 30, 2011

NYT (5): National News

Occupy Philly to be evicted; "The Dwindling Power of a College Degree"; Starting early, anti-Obama attack ads are hopelessly misleading; In CA, Brown refuses to give up on bullet train; Two new books on the KKK.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, November 27, 2011