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By Manning Marable
$16.50
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By Gore Vidal
$16.95
$13
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Tom Janssen, Cagle Cartoons, The Netherlands —
Posted on Feb 4, 2012
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Pat Bagley, Cagle Cartoons, Salt Lake Tribune —
Posted on Dec 27, 2010
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Flickr / brmurray
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The U.S. economy tacked on 431,000 new jobs in May, the biggest monthly jump in a decade, but most of those were people hired for the 2010 census count, and those jobs will vanish after the summer.
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Jae C. Hong / AP
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Buzz, Google’s answer to Twitter, is getting a lot of bad looks from privacy advocates. The service, which allows users to share short messages or “tweets” (buzzers?) with a network of friends, is faulted for an alleged invasion of privacy that uses e-mail data to automatically create a preconfigured friends list.
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Wikimedia Commons
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In one of the most improper of Christmas presents, Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese human rights activist, was sentenced to an unusually harsh 11 years in prison for charges of “subversion.” The decision was ostensibly made on Christmas Day to minimize international attention.
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flickr.com / Bob Hannaford
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Two years after Harvard Law School announced it would waive a year of tuition for students who pledged to work five years in the nonprofit sector or in government, the school has suspended the program, citing both the recession and a flood of students seeking to get in on the deal.
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flickr.com/mcoughlin
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By Bill Boyarsky — One of the worst casualties of the Iraq war and the Wall Street failures is the U.S. public school system, which is central to the nation’s economic, intellectual and social health. With financial resources being consumed, education cuts are on the way. Thank you, John McCain and President George W. Bush.
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A poll by The Washington Post-ABC News reports that nine in 10 Americans rate the economy negatively, with a majority of those polled believing it to be in “poor” shape. Support of the U.S. war in Iraq is also down, with six in 10 Americans rejecting the administration’s argument that the conflict is an effective defense against terrorism.
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blogspot.com
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After two months and 261 rounds of bidding, the FCC announced Tuesday that it has raised a total of $19.6 billion from the sale of the U.S. wireless spectrum. The revenue, slated to fund “public safety and digital television transition initiatives,” is nearly double what Congress had previously estimated for the publicly owned spectrum.
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The Supreme Court refused to hear the arguments of a conservative religious group that wants to use public funds to send students to religious schools.
Democracy: 1 Theocracy: 0
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From the AP: “The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming.”
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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A bipartisan Senate bill that would have created a public database of all government contracts has been blocked by an unknown senator. The bill, which passed its committee unanimously, can now move forward only if the mysterious senator who placed it on “secret hold” removes the constraint. (h/t: Crooks and Liars)
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From redcross.org
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Seriously: We won’t be responsible for the above if you try to digest your dinner and this news simultaneously….
Ready? OK: Bush is apparently frustrated that the Iraqi people have not shown greater support for America’s mission in Iraq.
That’s right: Bush is frustrated at the lack of public support for America in Iraq.
Has the man stopped watching even Fox News, and instead installed a one-way walkie-talkie in his brain with Don Rumsfeld on the other end?
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In case you missed them, here are some choice picks from the week in radio.
Posted on Jul 30, 2006
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The Arizona senator has withdrawn his co-sponsorship of a public financing bill that he and Sen. Russ Feingold (along with two House reps) had long championed. People close to the situation say McCain dropped his support because he is likely to run for president and may end up not abiding by public financing rules.
We’ve known for some time that McCain has been doing all sorts of unseemly things in an attempt to lock up the nomination.
Posted on Jul 28, 2006
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It’s called NewAssignment.net, and the idea is for everyday citizens to fund specific reporting projects that will be assigned to professional journalists. This could be the birth of an entirely new paradigm in reporting: professionals and amateurs working together in a truly networked way. Check it out.
Posted on Jul 26, 2006
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From hammeroftruth.com
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Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, one of the few traditional media reporters to have forcefully challenged Bush’s prewar claims on WMDs, has called for a moratorium on publishing government statements “that are designed solely as a public relations tool.”
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According to USA Today: “The federal government will pay a Texas law school $1 million to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of sensitive data available to the press and public through freedom-of-information requests.”
Seriously, this s*#t just got ridiculous; the Bush administration is already the most secrecy-crazed in the 20th century. Now it needs more layers of secrecy?
Posted on Jul 7, 2006
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From Newsweek
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A Hollywood studio and a Lebanese production company have produced a $1-million public service ad aimed at discouraging suicide bombings. Their funding came from “an independent, non-governmental group of scholars, non-political people,” according to an exec. (Via Huff Po)
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A law working its way through the California Legislature would provide for full public funding of credible candidates in statewide races. This is the real-deal way to eliminate the ruinous influence of huge campaign contributions in elections. It’s already working in a few states, and a victory in California could start a nationwide revolution. Check it out. Sign a petition. Join the cause.
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House and Senate lawmakers embraced a $3,300 pay raise that would increase their salaries to $168,500. Meanwhile, it’s been reported that members of the House’s own ethics committee took over $1 million in privately funded (read: lobbyist-funded) trips last year.
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By Mr. Fish Watch an original animated short by Mr. Fish on the Democratic Party’s new secret weapon for winning back the hearts and minds of the American public.
Watch:
 Quicktime (4.5 MB)
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Check out this documentary about a faith-based abstinence program that religious-right forces installed in New Mexico public schools. Watch for the part about the covert “purity” war room.
Posted on May 24, 2006
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From enterstageright.com
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Next time you’re stuck in gridlock, keep in mind that many American cities had fantastic public rail systems until Big Auto bought up all the tracks and scrapped them to make way for cars. The Observer reminds us that “it did not have to be like this.”
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Undercover agents will bust you in a bar for public intoxication—so you don’t get behind the wheel of a car, or something like that.
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The president made the admission during a news conference, during which he uttered perhaps the most tone-deaf and asinine remark of his presidency: “Nobody likes war. It creates a sense of uncertainty in the country.”
Posted on Mar 21, 2006
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From Fox News via Think Progress
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In a Fox News interview, Cheney admits to drinking a beer at lunch before the hunt, which took place a few hours later. (Hat tip: Think Progress.) If he’s low-balling the amount he drank, it wouldn’t be the first time Cheney misled the public.
UPDATE: AMERICAblog reports that MSNBC’s website “scrubbed” a reference to Cheney’s drinking.
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In negotiating with a second wave of sexual abuse victims, the Catholic Church has “reverted to the bare-knuckles tactics it had long used to silence or marginalize them,” critics tell the New York Times, “largely because public attention to the scandals had abated.” Read the story.
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It’s good to know that some of our judges are standing up to the fundamentalists. A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled today that a public school district can’t require the inclusion of “intelligent design” in biology classes as an alternative to evolution. See story.
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