In the Public Interest

With the Tea Partiers giving the establishment Republican incumbents much ferment in the primaries (or retirement, as in the case of David Brat defeating powerhouse Congressman Eric Cantor in Virginia), what are progressives doing to their corporate-indentured incumbent Democrats? Not much. There are few electoral challengers or pressures directly pushing progressive redirections for our declining…

He could have chosen an easier path in life. After all, Howard G. Buffett is the son of brainy investor, Warren Buffett. Instead, he chose to become a working farmer in Decatur, Illinois and launch a serious effort to fight world hunger in poor countries and in the United States (where 50 million humans are…

Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review section featured a one page interview with Hillary Clinton, author of the just released Hard Choices which brought her a $14 million advance from Viacom’s Simon and Schuster. My first reaction was “Can anybody believe this?” I’m referring to the replies by Mrs. Clinton to questions about her…

Next time you hear federal officials say that there is no money to repair or build necessary public facilities in your community, ask them why there always seems to be money to greatly overpay for government projects that are routinely outsourced to corporate contractors. It is important to understand why incomplete projects such as the…

Memorial Day – the origins of which stem from Decoration Day in 1868 which recognized the Union soldiers who had perished – is a day of lost opportunities. No, I’m not referring to consumers missing out on store sales and the advertising hoopla by television marketeers who have ravaged that special day in their unseemly…

Attorney General Eric Holder’s sweetheart settlement with Switzerland’s second largest bank, corporate criminal Credit Suisse, sent the wrong message to other corporate barons. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) says it well: “Nor does the plea deal hold any officers, directors or key executives individually accountable for wrongdoing, raising the question of whether it will sufficiently deter…

The Republican Party establishment – read the corporatist U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their incumbent toadies controlling the Party in Congress – is in the process of vanquishing the Tea Party. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, predicted as much when he told the New York Times in March that his brand of corporate…

What are the signs that an institution is clinically insane? For over thirty-five years I have been trying to persuade psychological and psychiatric specialists and their professional associations to take up this serious subject for study and corrective suggestions. Alas, to no avail. They are totally occupied with the mental health of individuals. One symptom…

On May 6th, Cleveland taxpayers will go to the polls to vote on Issue 7. A no vote will prevent an increase in taxpayer money to the already subsidized, big league sports arenas. A yes vote will reaffirm taxpayer servitude to arrogant corporatists and their cruel, twisted mistreatment of that struggling city. When I was…