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By Ralph Nader October 30, 2018 The top Republican politicos must be thinking — with adversaries like the Democratic Party, who needs friends? Since 2010 the GOP minority has taken over the majority of state legislatures, Governorships and now the three branches of the federal government. Polls consistently show most Americans oppose the catastrophic Republican…
By Ralph Nader October 24, 2018 Decades ago, prominent political analyst Kevin Phillips said that the Republicans go for the jugular while the Democrats go for the capillaries. Today’s national Democratic Party makes Phillips observation seem overly generous. With the polls tightening for November’s Congressional elections and Trump’s weak approval rating inching up to 47%,…
By Ralph Nader October 17, 2018 Corporatist candidates like to talk up values without getting specific and without drawing attention to how their voting records put the interests of big financial backers against the interest of most voters. This election season is no exception, from Florida to Texas to California to Ohio to Wisconsin. In…
By Ralph Nader October 10, 2018 Brett Kavanaugh, the new Injustice of the Supreme Court of the United States, must be pleased by the leading news stories on Monday and Tuesday regarding his swift swearing-in on Saturday. The multiple perjurer, corporate supremacist, presidential power-monger, and a past fugitive from justice (regarding credible claims of sexual…
By Ralph Nader October 4, 2018 In all the mounting media coverage of problems with the Internet, such as invasion of privacy, vulnerability to hacking, political manipulation, and user addiction, there is one constant: online advertising. Online advertising is the lifeblood of Google, Facebook, and many other Internet enterprises that profit by providing personal data…
By Ralph Nader September 26, 2018 Solid studies by physicians at leading medical schools have been warning of the huge casualty toll that flows from preventable problems in hospitals. A 2016 peer-reviewed study by physicians at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine estimated that at least 5,000 people a week in the U.S. lose their…
By Ralph Nader and Marc Rotenberg Last week the Federal Trade Commission scheduled two days of hearings to explore new challenges to consumers in the digital age. The hearings were heralded by incoming chair Joe Simons as the first comprehensive review of the consumer agency’s role in almost two decades. The only problem is that…
The FAA authorization bill, facing a September 30 deadline, includes a provision, section 3129, authorizing the Secretary of Transportation to decide whether fees by the airlines are “unreasonable or disproportionate to the costs incurred.” Skyrocketing airlines fees total nearly $5 billion a year and are the leading cause of airline passenger complaints to Congress. Members…
By Ralph Nader September 18, 2018 In an oft-reported exchange between Gertrude Stein, an American widely known for her wisdom and glittering 1920s Parisian literary salon, and one of her earnest admirers, the admirer asked her – “What are the answers, Madame Stein?” She replied “What are the questions?” Within our media/political/corporate culture of self-censorship…
Nicholas Kachman spent his professional career as a chemical engineer at General Motors from 1957 to 1993, specializing in curtailing toxic hazards in the workplace and into the outside environment by GM. For years he was GM’s technical liaison with the Environmental Protection Agency on regulatory matters. After his retirement, Mr. Kachman wrote in 2015…