Archive
In OtherWords: October 12, 2016
Weeks into the largest national prison strike in our history, the U.S Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Alabama prison conditions. It promises to look into claims of human rights abuses from sexual assault by correctional officers to unsanitary...
Prison Labor is Slavery by Another Name
Right now there’s a national movement mobilizing to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour. But imagine if instead of earning even that much, you could only earn a few cents an hour. If that sounds like something from the developing world,...
The Best and Worst Presidents on Taxes
With all the debate over Donald Trump’s tax-dodging, I've been wondering how taxes have played into presidential politics in the past. For some answers, I turned to Bob McIntyre, head of the nonpartisan research and advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice. For 40...
Campaigns End On Election Day — Revolutions Don’t
Bernie Sanders' truly revolutionary campaign for president ended in August after the last Democratic primary election. Corporatists, cynics, and most of the media assumed that the grassroots populist revolution he inspired was over as well. They couldn't imagine that...
Tilting at Women
In OtherWords: October 5, 2016
Last week, Congress rejected President Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that will allow victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for their involvement. OtherWords cartoonist Khalil Bendib imagines what this law would look...
Are U.S.-Saudi Relations Finally Souring?
Congress recently passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) allowing families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to sue other governments, including Saudi Arabia, for possible damages. Despite threats by the Saudi government to sell...
Is Trump Committed to Democratic Rule of Law?
Donald Trump’s rhetoric has been so dangerously outside the bounds of normal American political discourse — which, at least, pays lip service to constitutional governance and democratic rule — that legitimate questions about whether he could be relied on to fully and...
Why Our Kids Are Coming in Last Place
The United States, anyone could reasonably argue, has the most accomplished elite athletes in the world. The best evidence? In Rio this past summer, young American men and women finished at a comfortable first place in the Olympic final medal tally. But what if we...
His Bigoted Majesty
A University of Michigan student has officially changed his personal pronoun to "His Majesty." The student, who is politically conservative, did so to call attention to and ridicule the university policy which allows students to select their own designated personal...
