Congress Loves Socialized Health Care — For Itself

| Jul 3, 2019 | Economy / Business|Environment / Health|Rights / DemocracyFor $3.5 trillion a year, shouldn’t we Americans have a world-class health care system? Yet while we spend the most of any advanced nation in the world to get care — more than $10,000 a year per person — we get the worst results. No surprise, then, that Medicare...

How Do You Celebrate a Flawed Nation?

| Jun 26, 2019 | Environment / Health|HP Subfeatured|Rights / DemocracyAs the Fourth of July rolls around, I think plenty of us are eager for barbecues, corn on the cob, watermelon, and fireworks, but our feelings about our country are somewhat more complicated. How do you love and celebrate a country that’s so obviously flawed? A...

Refusing to Fund Our Own Destruction

| | Economy / Business|Environment / Health|Food / Farming|HP SubfeaturedI spent the summer of 2015 knocking on doors across Cincinnati. As a rising college sophomore, I’d joined a group called Ohio Citizen Action to canvass for my community and the planet.  That year, the Ohio River was the most polluted body of water in the nation. Named...

State by State, the War on Cannabis is Ending

| Jun 19, 2019 | Economy / Business|Environment / Health|Food / Farming|HP Subfeatured|Peace / Security|Rights / DemocracyJudging by its first six months, 2019 has been a banner year for marijuana policy reform. Most notably, lawmakers in Illinois legalized the commercial production and retail sale of cannabis to adults. The state is the 11th to legalize the use of marijuana by those...

The Climate Crisis Is Also a Health Emergency

| Jun 12, 2019 | Editors Picks|Environment / Health|HP SubfeaturedRising global temperatures are intensifying the effects of extreme weather events across the United States and around the world. Wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, and severe storms are becoming the norm, not the exception. Extreme weather events...

If Corporations Have Rights, So Does Nature

| Jun 5, 2019 | Economy / Business|Environment / Health|Rights / DemocracyFrom the very start of our nation, the most popular forum for debating and shaping our democratic rights was not stately legislative halls, but rowdy beer halls. Indeed, “pub democracy” remains strong across our country, as is now being shown by a hardy group of...