Issue: 780
March 14, 2019
Color of Law
The Real National Emergency Is Not at the Border
Executive Editor
The President likes to tout that his administration is responsible for the nation's low unemployment rate, but what is the use of a low unemployment rate when people cannot live on the jobs they hold?
(CNN) Unlike Donald Trump's manufactured crisis and his vanity wall at the Mexico border, severe income inequality and economic greed are true national emergencies. Still, the…
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Cover Story
War-Mongering Nation – Solidarity America
Columnist
Fully 57 percent of the federal budget of $1.3 trillion, $718 billion has been earmarked by Trump for the military and defense purposes. All of the rest of government will run on the leftovers from the military-industrial complex and its enablers in industries in various states and, let us not forget, all of the members of Congress who bow before the god of earthly might and the campaign money that comes to them from those destructive sources.
“...[F]or where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” so goes the bible verse from Matthew Chapter 6, verse 21. With President Trump's 2020…
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Commentary
Loving a Church That Doesn’t Love Us
Editorial Board
Since June 2011 more than 100 Methodist ministers in New England have pledged to marry LGBTQ couples in defiance of the denomination’s ban on same-sex unions. Approximately one out of nine Methodist clerics signed a statement pledging to open their churches to LGBTQ couples that stated, “We repent that it has taken us so long to act… We realize that our church’s discriminatory policies tarnish the witness of the church to the world, and we are [complicit].’’
For decades there has been an ongoing struggle in the United Methodist Church (UMC) to adopt a policy of full inclusion of its LGBTQ parishioners and…
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Commentary
Let’s Clamp Down on Tobacco and Vaping Product Access for Young People
Editorial Board
We always need to follow the money when we realize that there are always beneficiaries in a society that has predatory capitalism at its roots. We don't need more children being exposed to addiction. We shouldn't outlaw vaping products without outlawing the sale of tobacco to children.
Nearly half a million people die every year from complications from smoking. About a tenth of them never put a cigarette to their lips – they…
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Sharp n’ Blunt
“A Man’s Rights Rest in Three Boxes: the Ballot Box, the Jury Box, and the Cartridge Box” – Frederick Douglass, 1867
Columnist
“a man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.”
As the iconic 19th century Black American orator Frederick Douglass so aptly put it in 1867, “a man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box,…
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Commentary
Will Public-Sector Unions Hold 2020 Democratic Candidates Accountable?
Columnist
Democratic success in the 2020 presidential election may well hinge on whether unions and Democrats can establish an effective unified, get-out-the-vote coalition to defeat Trump. Otherwise, there will be a repeat of the 2016 Hillary Clinton debacle.
Unions have a decision to make as to whether they will hold 2020 Democratic presidential candidates accountable to their preferred workplace, economic, and educational policies--the AFL-CIO,…
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Commentary
Odetta: Queen of Folk Music (includes video)
Editorial Board
In every state of this union we migrants have been We work on the land and we'll fight until we win It's always we ramble, that river and I All along your green valleys I'll work till I die Travel this road until death sets me free Because pastures of plenty must always be free
Songwriter: WOODY GUTHRIE Odetta: Singer, guitarist, civil and human rights activist December 31, 1930 -December 2, 2008 Pastures of Plenty It's a mighty hard row my…
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Commentary
A Reparations Historical Overview – Worrill’s World
Columnist
When we talk about reparations we are talking about repairing the damages inflicted by member groups of the white race and the government of the United States in order to enjoy full freedom. When we discuss reparations for African people in the United States we are talking about "slave labor, humanity, culture, legacies, names, languages that were taken outside of the law and natural process by forceful demand of white captive slave owners."
The issue of reparations for African people throughout the world has become a widely discussed topic and manifests itself in a variety of action plans and…
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