Blog - OtherWords

The Lineup: Week of Sept. 26-Oct. 2, 2011

It began when an employee of a company with a government contract attempted to expedite his deportation even though the Obama administration had announced that cases like Ramos’s are officially a low priority.

MIA: Obama’s New Common-Sense Immigration Policy

by Matias Ramos

Now that the electronic shackle is off, it’s really nice not having to listen to the eerie computer-voice commands regularly broadcast from its plastic speaker.

Blocking Palestinian Statehood

by Chris Toensing

When President Barack Obama addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2010, he sounded hopeful that by the following year there would be “an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” Sure enough, in September 2011, the Palestinians asked the UN Security Council to recognize a state of Palestine — but Obama ordered the U.S. delegate to veto the request. What gives?

America’s Government Contracting Bonanza Bilks Taxpayers

by Beth Schulman

I live nine blocks from the U.S. Capitol, so many of my neighbors depend on the government for their livelihoods. A few — a scientist, an editor, a Secret Service agent — belong to that often mocked and rapidly shrinking category known as “civil servants.” The government writes their paychecks, lets them buy into a decent health insurance plan, and runs a respectable pension system for them. Some belong to — and are protected by — powerful unions. Their generous benefit packages and job security are the stuff of legend.

The Drug War Spreads the Bloodbath South

by John Lindsay-Poland

In the grotesque wars that pit Mexican armed forces and drug cartels against each other and civilians who get in their way, the Zetas cartel plays a fearsome role. Born of U.S.-trained Mexican special forces who began working as muscle for the Gulf drug cartel, the Zetas rapidly expanded by employing methods aimed at terrorizing opponents and civilians alike: decapitations, public hangings, and mutilations.

It’s Class Warfare, All Right

by Donald Kaul

Republicans are accusing President Obama of waging class warfare, which is a little like the Japanese complaining about the time Pearl Harbor attacked them in 1941.

The Corporate Takeover of the 2012 Presidential Election

by Jim Hightower

The unregulated energy hucksters behind the infamous Enron scandals of a decade ago created an array of dummy financial funds to evade public scrutiny and perpetrate fraud. To disguise the scams, they dubbed these phony funds names like Chewco and JEDI.