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Issue: 690

March 16, 2017

Cover Story

The President’s Authority Won’t Be Questioned?

By Perry Redd Columnist

Trump’s propensity to revise recent history with outright lies, mischaracterizations and sleight of hand machinations are enough to throw any authority he might have out the damned window.

Coming up on 60 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, I imagine that a million more Americans are so sick they’re throwing up (their hands too) at…

Continue reading 6 min

Guest Commentary

Women’s History Month – Septima Clark: Teacher To A Movement

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor Guest Commentator

"If you watch the movie 'From Montgomery to Memphis,' you'll notice that they don't mention one woman going through there. Not one. You almost never see their role put down in any of the reports about the Movement. You just get 'Dr. so-and-so from Alabama State College did such-and-such.'" She called sexism "one of the weaknesses of the civil rights movement."

Rosa Parks, who has been called the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement, well remembers the first time she met Septima Clark. It was at a…

Continue reading 17 min

Color of Law

Tax Return Leak Has Trump White House Shook – and it Could Just Be the Beginning

By David A. Love, JD Executive Editor

without the tax returns, we don’t know how beholden the president is to foreign powers and interests, how liable he is to enact policies that benefit Donald Trump personally, and how much government money he will use to please his foreign partners and fulfill his business obligations. Without the returns, Americans may not know how much of a corrupt banana republic it has become.

On Tuesday evening, MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” leaked Donald Trump’s 2005 tax returns. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, and raises far…

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Commentary

An Attack on Education

By Dr. Julianne Malveaux, PhD Editorial Board

There has been an attack on education, with legislation being introduced as early as January 23, 2017. That legislation, HR 610, is titled the Choices in Education Act. It would repeal the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and limits the authority of the Department of Education so that it should only award block grants to states. It also sets up a voucher system. If states do not comply with the rules of this legislation, they would be ineligible for block grants.

The effort to repeal and replace health care is generating headlines, and the attempt to investigate our 45th President’s Russia connections is of high importance. The…

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Commentary

Storming Union Foundations: Protections, Pen-Ben and Organizational Supporters

By Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, M.S.P.H. Columnist

Teachers have been mandated to increase their pension contributions in numerous states, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Indiana, and others. But what is most striking is that at the same time these payments have been boosted, states have held the line on teachers’ salary upgrades which have resulted in an overall decrease in teachers’ earnings.

Betsy DeVos is on a crusade to meet with the major stakeholders of public education: public school superintendents, principals, teachers and major organizations. Braving the pushback,…

Continue reading 5 min

Sharp n’ Blunt

Why Can’t We Deport White Men Back to the Caves of Europe?

By Desi Cortez Columnist

The game plan is to minimize Americans of color, while apparently Trump’s Americans are going to begin to have sex like little Viagra intoxicated white rabbits.

Iowa Congressman Steve King’s “living the life” - he’s one of those inflamed real Americans “saying what he means and meaning what he says.” He’s now…

Continue reading 6 min

Commentary

The Criminalization of Dissent – The U.S. Constitution? Not That Important

By John Funiciello Columnist

At this time, the move to curb free speech is taking the form of legislation that makes it illegal to demonstrate under some circumstances. According to the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Republican legislators in 19 states are attempting to criminalize and penalize protests, including increasing jail sentences and fines for obstructing traffic, for tampering or trespassing on such property as railroads and pipelines, or refusing to leave an “unlawful protest.”

There are two things happening in the world of dissent and union organizing that all Americans should watch closely, starting with the imprisonment of union organizers…

Continue reading 7 min

View from the Battlefield

Vision – Organizing in Truth and Power

By Jamala Rogers Editorial Board

Organizations whose theory of change is rooted in organizing the working class as the key link to transformative change seem to be in short supply. If there’s no base building going down among the working class, I’m unsure of how our movement is going to grow, challenge structure and take power.

This is the fourth article of a 7-part series that will focus on the issues in our radical movements that I think need our immediate and…

Continue reading 7 min

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