Archive
Scalia’s Big Shoes
In OtherWords: February 10, 2016
This week in OtherWords, Janet Redman highlights how the Trans-Pacific Partnership could make it harder for Americans to safeguard our communities and I explain why the natural gas industry is in big trouble. If you haven’t already subscribed, please ensure that you...
Betting the Farm on Free Trade
From her home in Berks County, Pennsylvania, Karen Feridun is helping stage a growing citizen pushback against the expansion of natural gas extraction. But a far-reaching global deal recently signed halfway around the world may make her job much harder. Feridun got...
Cracking Down on Abusive Debt Collectors
Have you ever picked up your phone to find an aggressive voice on the other end demanding payments on a debt you know nothing about? You’re far from alone. Once you’re in the sights of a debt collector, the impact on your life can be devastating: Your wages can be...
Natural Gas Becomes a Fracking Mess
Until late last year, Laura Gideon’s family lived in Porter Ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles. “We didn’t ever want to leave,” Gideon told the Associated Press. It’s “a nice gated community.” What uprooted them from one of LA’s wealthiest pockets? They became...
Trump’s Impeachable Offense
For anyone who cares deeply about being informed, watching Republican presidential debates can feel like a form of torture. But the program becomes more terrifying altogether when their ignorance is hitched to an endorsement of actual torture. At the latest GOP debate...
The Blind Spots of Dead White Men
As the rest of the nation celebrates Black History Month this February, I’m taking a graduate level course I call “Dead White Men.” It's actually a classic theory class that covers a number of influential thinkers, like free market theorist Adam Smith and the famous...
Stomping on Our Constitutional Rights
Imagine the outcry by tea party Republicans if state legislators were passing laws banning the use of video cameras in banks to capture images of robbers. Yet those very same tea partiers have been passing laws in various states to ban the recording of inhumane,...
Billionaire vs. Billionaire
6 Reasons Not to Reboot the Cold War
The Pentagon budget unveiled this week calls for quadrupling spending on efforts to counter Russia. The money would move more troops, tanks, and artillery into position near the Russia border. This last Obama budget would also fund another installment in a $1 trillion...
