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By Ralph Nader Here we go again. A sudden surge in the price of gasoline and heating oil is followed by reported expressions of frustrated despair by hard-pressed consumers in the midst of silence from the oil companies and abdication of responsibility by the elected and appointed officials of federal and state governments. The price…
By Ralph Nader Bill McKibben, a prolific writer and organizer on global warming and climate change, has had a busy year teaching environmentalists not to despair and will soon be learning some lessons himself. In August 2011, he organized an unprecedented demonstration in front of the White House urging President Obama to deny a permit…
By Ralph Nader How could Barack Obama say, in his State of the Union speech, “let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour”? Back in 2008, Obama campaigned to have a $9.50 per…
By Ralph Nader Hillary Clinton has completed her four-year tenure as Secretary of State to the accolades of both Democratic and Republican Congressional champions of the budget-busting “military-industrial complex,” that President Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address. Behind the public relations sheen, the photo-opportunities with groups of poor people in the developing world, an…
February 6, 2013 The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today continued its tradition under the leadership of Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe of shooting itself in the foot. The only question that remains is: When will the madness end? By ending Saturday letter delivery in August 2013, as the USPS has proposed, millions of customers who take…
Senator Dianne Feinstein Chairman Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 211 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Madam Chairman: We, the undersigned, object to the Committee’s insistence that only nominee John Brennan as director of the CIA be permitted to testify as to his fitness for office. Experience teaches that the adversarial system is…
By Ralph Nader On January 30, 2013, an unusual front-page story appeared prominently in The Washington Post about a small D.C. charity called Martha’s Table that serves meals to 1,100 people a day, has early-childhood and after-school programs, and provides other community-enriching programs. Among its distinctions is a giant volunteer corps of, according to the…
By Ralph Nader A friend asked me what I was thinking while listening to President Obama’s inaugural address. Here were my reactions: Obama: “They [the Patriots of 1776] gave to us a republic, a government of and by and for the people.” The flood of money-shaping elections and politics has given us a corporate government…
Mike Duke, CEO Walmart Corporation Bentonville, Arkansas Dear Mr. Duke, Walmart, your gigantic company, is increasingly being challenged by your workers, government prosecutors, civil lawsuits, communities (that do not want a Walmart), taxpayers learning about your drain on government services and corporate welfare, and small businesses and groups working with unions such as SEIU and…
President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama: We the undersigned are writing to urge that you pardon former CIA officer John Kiriakou. Motivated as a father devoted to his children, Mr. Kiriakou recently pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of…