Rights and Democracy
GOP Goes ‘Grassroots,’ Washington-Style
Congressional Republicans have spent the first two years of the Obama administration as the rock-solid party of “no,” “uh-uh,” “no way,” “forget about it,” “nothing doing,” “we’re-agin-it-and-we’ll-kill-it.” This is one reason their job approval rating is in the ditch.
Our Prisons Don’t do us Justice
Prison numbers are tough to pin down. There is the federal system, there are 50 state systems, and no one is just sure how many local jails or military brigs. All told, professionals estimate that one in every 100 Americans resides in one of them.
Let’s Get Sensible about Immigration
On Mother’s Day, three months before Arizona’s draconian new immigration law was to go into effect, a mother of two addressed a vigil outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. The woman had been intercepted, without papers, on her way to work. Unable to fight back tears, she told the crowd of the months she spent in this privatized detention center, wondering if she would ever see her children again.
Remembering John Wooden
Wooden died at the age of 99 in June, 35 years after retiring as the most successful (and many would say best) basketball coach of all time. During the final 12-year stretch of his career, his UCLA teams won 10 national championships, a record unlikely ever to be broken.
Franken v. Roberts
At last, there’s a Democrat in the Senate who’s acting like a real Democrat in the FDR mold, unafraid and unabashed to go right at the corporate powers who dominate our economy, environment, media, politics, and government. Al Franken, the new Minnesota senator who won the seat once held by the fighting populist Paul Wellstone, is shaking up the Washington establishment on behalf of regular folks. Instead of going-along-to-get-along, Franken is speaking bluntly about the raw judicial activism and corporate obsequiousness of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, a lifelong servant of the corporate agenda.
Letters to the Editor: Debating Mexican Immigration
Manuel Pérez-Rocha’s OtherWords op-ed Misguided U.S. Economic Policies Drive Many Mexicans to Come Here is clearly a conversation-starter.
The Lineup: Week of July 19-25, 2010
The latest OtherWords editorial package features an op-ed by Manuel Pérez-Rocha and a cartoon by Khalil Bendib about immigration.
Misguided U.S. Economic Policies Drive Many Mexicans to Come Here
President Barack Obama did the right thing by supporting comprehensive immigration reform that would place millions of undocumented workers on the path to citizenship. Obama even went a step further, suing the state of Arizona for its unconstitutional and racially profiling immigration law. That law would punish and divide families, many of whose members have worked years for this country.
Kagan’s Fascinating Conversations
Before the hearings for Elena Kagan’s confirmation to the Supreme Court began, the media and political insiders agreed on one thing. It wasn’t that Solicitor General Kagan would come off as too conservative or too liberal, as some commentators claimed. Everyone expected that the confirmation hearings would be boring. And everyone was wrong.
Help Wanted
