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Those politically savvy people who thought strongman, Hosni Mubarak would be out before the end of the first week of the Egyptian uprising better rethink the odds. For thirty years Mubarak has developed what can be called a deeply rooted dictatorial regime with regular White House access and annual largesse of some $1.3 billion in…
Dear President Obama: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reflected your sentiments when she commented on the Egyptian uprising with the words “We want to see free and fair elections.” But in the District of Columbia, where you and Secretary Clinton reside, there are no “free and fair elections” for electing representatives with full voting rights…
I have long fought against the systemic disempowerment of investors in large public corporations, but the mistreatment of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders, including me, is uniquely reprehensible. For decades Fannie and Freddie behaved like other large, publicly held financial corporations. They were profit-seeking companies, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).…
Milano Italy For Release January 26, 2011 Statement of Ralph Nader The 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee is a modern day Pinto for soccer moms with a fuel tank located dangerously behind the rear axle in the crush zone of an impact. In the United States alone, there have been 184 fatal fire crashes in Jeep…
Reading a recent issue of Public Citizen’s excellent Health Letter titled “Know When Antibiotics Work,” I recalled the recent tragic loss of a healthy history professor who was rushed to a fine urban hospital, with a leading infectious disease specialist by his side. No antibiotics could treat his mysterious “superbug.” He died in 36 hours.…
Bob King, the new president of the United Auto Workers, whose membership is down under 400,000 from a peak of 1.5 million in 1979 is rolling out an initiative to organize foreign auto plants in the U.S., expand the union’s reach overseas and forge alliances with social justice organizations. Ordinarily, the response to these ambitions…
Dear President Obama: The sentiments expressed in this letter may have more meaning more for you now that the results of the mid-term elections are clear. You have seen what can happen when a number of your supporters lose their enthusiasm and stay home or do not actively participate as volunteers. In your first two…
The start of the New Year is a good time to talk about Time. About this, we can all agree—there are only twenty four hours in a day. Zillions of companies and persons want a piece of that time from us in order to make money. But that supply of Time is not expandable. Unlike…
December 30, 2010 Dear Governor-Elect Cuomo: The conditions where many regular New Yorkers live are grim. Poverty, unemployment, home foreclosures, and small business bankruptcies keep growing. On the other side of the tracks, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers recorded an average of $1 billion each, or over $80 million each a month in 2009.…
Pharmaceutical Industry Fraud By Ralph Nader The corporate defrauding of taxpayers (eg. Medicaid and Medicare) and prescription drugs with skyrocketing prices was the subject of a report by Public Citizen’s Dr. Sidney Wolfe and his associates (see Citizen.Org). Dr. Wolfe’s team compiled a total of 165 federal and state settlements since 1991 totaling $19.8 billion…