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By Ralph Nader August 21, 2020 A national political nominating convention, as the Democrats have just completed, is, to be sure, a mutual admiration event. A steady stream of speakers led to the finale with the acceptance speech by the presidential candidate, Joe Biden. But the Convention has another declared purpose: to show the country…
By Ralph Nader August 14, 2020 Economic indicators – data points, trends, and micro-categories – are the widgets of the big information industry. By contrast, indicators for our society’s democratic health are not similarly compiled, aggregated, and reported. Its up and down trends are presented piecemeal and lack quantitative precision. We can get the process…
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
By Ralph Nader August 6, 2020 The combination of greed and power often spin out of control and challenge the enforceable rule of law and the countervailing force of the organized civic community. When greed and power are exercised by giant multinational corporations that escape the discipline of the nation-state, the potential for evil becomes…
August 3, 2020 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Office of the Speaker H-252 U.S. Capitol United States Congress Washington, DC 20515 RE: Your Authority to Fund the Defunded Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) Constructive Leverage! Dear Speaker Pelosi, A critical arm and intellectual infrastructure of Congress – the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) – has been…
By Ralph Nader July 31, 2020 Years ago, Elizabeth Brennan Moynihan told me about her disgust with the Democratic Party’s outside consultants. These consultants were not competent. They were arrogant, costly, and looking out first for their interests, not the candidates they were supposed to advance. She threw them out and personally took over her…
July 31, 2020 Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 229 Cannon House Office Building U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515-3214 Dear Representative Ocasio-Cortez, Your going to the floor of the House of Representatives to take to task Representative Ted Yoho for his disgusting and sexist epithet following your exchange with him exposed to a national audience the…
By Ralph Nader July 24, 2020 The Federal Reserve Board – our unaccountable Central Bank – needs more citizen and Congressional supervision. Fees from financial institutions fund its operations, not Congressional appropriations. It is as secret as it wants to be and that’s plenty. (See Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the…
By Ralph Nader July 17, 2020 Public Citizen’s open letter, co-signed by over twenty nonprofit civic organizations working for the public health, demanded that Trump and Pence immediately give up their disastrous daily mismanagement of the Covid-19 response. Trump’s bungling and ignorance have allowed the Covid-19 virus to spread faster at an alarming rate around…
By Ralph Nader July 10, 2020 Today’s New York Times headline boldly exclaimed, “PRESIDENT IS ‘NOT ABOVE THE LAW,’ JUSTICES DECIDE.” But then the Supreme Court majority found a way not to apply the law to Trump’s defiance of Congress. Didn’t this question get decided in 1776 and more formally in 1787 by our Founders?…