The maker of Twinkies, perhaps the senior statesman of American junk food, along with other sweet snacks and breads halted production last week and announced that it would seek liquidation through bankruptcy and lay off all of its more than 18,000 employees. Despite years of dismal sales and being virtually forgotten by most of the [...]
The first true test of the post-Citizens United campaign financing landscape resulted in a cash “arms race”that drove election spending to unthinkable records, but with surprisingly little to show for the big checks cut by a cache of wealthy donors. The 2012 campaign will end up costing a total of over $6 billion, with $2 [...]
PRESIDENT OBAMA WINS REELECTION. ` Surpassing the 270 electoral votes necessary shortly after 11 PM on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney to win a second term in the White House. After a historically long, bitter and expensive campaign, the status quo was retained in Washington as the House and Senate [...]
New state-based voting restrictions have been joined by a more dangerous player in the game of voter suppression. There is growing concern that an army of tens of thousands of poll watchers ready to be stationed at voting sites across the country on Election Day could potentially disenfranchise poor and minority voters and swing the [...]
The 2012 election had long been predicted to set new records for money raised and spent during a single political campaign, but updated figures show that the actual money race has blown past expectations and is likely to be the most expensive in American history by nearly $1 billion. The dismantling of national campaign finance [...]
“THERE ARE ALWAYS WAYS TO WORK FOR PEACE.“ So says Kathy Kelly, describing some of her work with Afghan Peace Volunteers. Besides urging international action to demand and enforce a cessation of hostilities in the country, APV supports a collective of Afghan women who work to create vital supplies of bedding and warm clothing [...]
“INVESTING IN MUSIC FOR ALL CITIZENS”: THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT MANY AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS DO NOT DO. “Non-profit” orchestras treat their audiences and their musicians just like many for-profit corporations treat their employees: get as much “productivity” as they can out of their employees by keeping their wages as low as possible. Symphonies in [...]
The following is a guest blog from Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford. This was originally posted at Black Agenda Report on October 24, and is republished here with permission from the author. ….. Debate? What debate? What we witnessed Monday night was the total hegemony of imperial corporate ideology, served up in chocolate and [...]
DRINKING BEER WITH BUSH OR PLAYING FLAG FOOTBALL WITH ROMNEY: WHEN ARE NEWS REPORTERS GOING TO DROP THEIR PRETENSES OF BEING OBJECTIVE JOURNALISTS? An Associated Press reporter confuses political news with a fashion review in describing Romney’s attire and other senseless details of Romney and his campaign aides playing a game with reporters and [...]
“THIS WAS A WRETCHED DEBATE, WITH ALMOST NO REDEEMING QUALITIES.” You’d be forgiven if you thought Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were running mates instead of political adversaries if you watched the last of three presidential debate on Monday night. The pair spent much of the nearly two-hour event agreeing with each other on [...]
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