In the Public Interest

Can Congress “walk and chew gum at the same time?” This phrase used by President Lyndon Johnson for one of his political opponents comes to mind at a time early in the first 100 days of the Obama Administration when supposedly many long-overdue changes and rollbacks are possible. It is not just that Congress is…

Let’s start with a fairness point. Why should you pay a 5 to 6 percent sales tax for buying the necessities of life, when tomorrow, some speculator on Wall Street can buy $100 million worth of Exxon derivatives and not pay one penny in sales tax? Let’s further add a point of common sense. The…

Soon after the passage in 1999 of the Clinton-Rubin-Summers-P. Graham deregulation of the financial industry, I boarded a US Air flight to Boston and discovered none other than then-Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers a few seats away. He was speaking loudly and constantly on his cell phone. When the plane took off he invited…

Dear President Obama: Underneath many of our country’s economic problems is the thirty-year collapse of consumer protection—both of the regulatory kind and of the self-help kind known as proper access to justice. Last month major consumer groups sent you a letter proposing action to rein in exploitation of consumers as debtors, as buyers of oil,…

In the long sixty-year tortured history of the Palestinian expulsion from their lands, Congress has maintained that it is always the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, and now Hamas who are to blame for all hostilities and their consequences with the Israeli government. The latest illustration of this Washington puppet show, backed by the most modern…

Dear President-Elect Obama: You have been receiving a great deal of advice since November 4, 2008 from people and groups who either want you to advance policies not covered in your campaign or who want you to be more specific about initiatives you emphasized. There are two suggestions which may not be among your store…

Dear George W. Bush— Cong. Barney Frank said recently that Barack Obama’s declaration that “there is only one president at a time” over-estimated the number. He was referring to the economic crisis. But where are you on the Gaza crisis where the civilian population of Gaza, its civil servants and public facilities are being massacred…

Government Without Law By Ralph Nader Over thirty years ago, a book came out titled “How the Government Breaks the Law”, by Jethro K. Lieberman.” Even then it was old news and the examples cited seemed small compared to today’s chronic law-breakers in the White House and at many federal departments and agencies. Many recent…

Earlier this year, while speaking in Fargo, North Dakota, Colleen Donley brought her nine year old son, Adam, from Perham, Minnesota, to the gathering to complain about the curriculum materials on the presidential race produced by Scholastic Magazine. Adam wanted to vote for me but their mock paper ballots had only two choices picturing John…

It’s time for that Holiday reading period and here are some deserving but little publicized recommendations: 1. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Spectre of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon S. Wolin (Princeton Univ. Press, 2008). Princeton Professor emeritus Wolin examines how the pathology of concentrated corporate power and its control of government is shattering our…