Archive
But Would Restaurants Have to Serve Libertarians?
Dr. Rand Paul, son of Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul, is a leading candidate to replace Kentucky’s outgoing Republican Senator, Jim Bunning. He’s seizing on the same citizen anger that fuels the tea partiers (Sarah Palin has endorsed him), but as Kentucky’s largest daily newspaper, the Courier-Journal, reports, “despite his independent thinking, much of what he stands for is repulsive to people in the mainstream.”
No More Torture
The Guardian, a British newspaper, reports that former “senior officers” in the MI6–the UK’s version of the CIA–are now criticizing U.S. policies and officials for using torture.
Letters to the Editor: Kaul’s ‘Enduring Literature’
If columnists tend toward liberalism, it is because their close contact with world tragedies teaches there is something better than illiberalism.
Greed in the Suites Gets a New Yardstick
During the Great Depression, a pay package for the top executive at National City Bank–the Wall Street giant we know today as Citigroup–scandalized the nation. It clocked in at more than $1 million, sparking an angry Congress to make corporations disclose their top executive salaries. Today, CEOs regularly rake in more than $20 million a year. But another landmark leap on executive pay disclosure could be around the corner. Congress may shortly shine the brightest light yet on executive pay excess, thanks to a simple little amendment introduced by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
Remembering Dorothy Height
Dr. Dorothy Height was a lantern and role model for millions of women and a long-haul social change agent, blessed with uncommon commitment and talent. Her fingerprints are quietly embedded in many of the transforming events of the last seven decades as African Americans, women, and children pushed open and walked through previously closed doors of opportunity.
My organization, Children’s Defense Fund, was blessed to have her serve on our board for over 30 years. When she passed away on April 20 at 98, we all lost a treasure, a wise counselor, and a rock we could always lean against for support in tough times.
Wall Street’s Back Pockets
Congress: Rescue the Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act protected the nation’s waters for decades, from the Great Lakes and Mississippi River, to small headwater streams and associated wetlands. Yet Congress and the Supreme Court have allowed the act to falter for the past nine years.
Warning: Shopping May Prove Deadly to Miners
One of the many lessons we must learn from the 29 miners who lost their lives in Montcoal, West Virginia is that our patterns of energy use, as well as how we shop, are intimately tied to those who risk their lives each and every day deep beneath the Earth’s surface.
Tax Policy: Maybe It’s Time to Start Over
Some serious and high-minded rich people calling themselves “Wealth for the Common Good” think they might ought to pay higher taxes. Not only themselves of course, but all upper-income Americans as well. Got bucks? Pony up! As you might expect, this feeling is not rampant among the prosperous set, so it is good for their personal safety that the “Wealthers” cannot be readily identified by hair color, tattoos, or other insignia.
Which Mitch Do You Believe?
Mitch-the-the-prairie-populist is publicly pretending to be fighting Wall Street, while Mitch-the-bankers’-buddy is privately shaking them down for campaign cash in exchange for being on their team. Who could be cynical about that?
