John Funiciello

While it’s true that assessing America’s condition might be a function of one’s political perspective, there was a wire service story recently that cried out for some kind of explanation. It was an Associated Press story about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s offer to engage Shirley Sherrod’s non-profit organization to conduct outreach for USDA to…

To hear Kay Bailey Hutchison, the retiring U.S. senator from Texas, respond to President Obama’s weekly radio message last Saturday, you could guess that the Republicans don’t have an inkling about the danger posed by our national failure to recognize just one fact: we’re running out of cheap oil in this world. Maybe she and…

There are two people who should be concerned now that Newt Gingrich has announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States: the American Worker and The Pope. Newt does get around. He will give an opinion on virtually any subject imaginable, whether you ask him or not. As…

Republicans in Congress and elsewhere are going through laws and regulations to find anything that will reduce the ability of workers to resist their all-out assault on workers and their families – this time, they propose to eliminate food stamps to families of anyone who has the temerity to strike. That’s right, HR 1135 is…

In most American newspapers and on television and radio outlets (with the exception of a number of small-circulation magazines), the idea that corporations and the wealthy in the U.S. should pay their fair share of taxes is a tough one to get off the ground. The vast majority of Americans are bombarded with propaganda that…

In the Declaration of Independence, the nascent rebels said a couple things every American should consider in our own time: “…He (King George) has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance…He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior…

Wal-Mart is fighting with every ounce of its considerable strength against a class action lawsuit, initiated about 10 years ago on behalf of hundreds of thousands of women who have or are working for the company, because if the world’s largest retailer loses, there could be repercussions throughout Corporate America. The lawsuit charges that women,…

Picture the breaker boys, rank on rank in the coal fields, sitting all day in the cold and the unrelenting coal dust, using their bare hands to sort through the coal to take out the slate and anything that would detract from the profits of the coal companies. Slate is sharp and it cut their…