Gas prices have been edging up since February, reaching $4 a gallon this Easter, and Republicans are gearing up to make a stink about it. To blame Democrats, that is, for setting things up this way. Continue reading
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Author Archives: Laura Flanders
The F Word: Guantanamo files show media priorities
As I perused the latest WikiLeaks releases Monday morning, a retweet from their Twitter feed caught my eye: “Gitmo: Compare the first paragraph of these two stories about the same thing.” One was a link to the BBC and one was CNN. Continue reading
The F Word: Citizens United allowing workplace propaganda
We’ve talked a lot about the devastating effects of corporate cash on elections following the Citizens United decision, but a new story in The Nation shows that the Supreme Court’s also made it a lot easier for companies to pressure their employees directly about voting. Continue reading
The F Word: Missed connections from the economic to the social
Is there a journalism school somewhere that that teaches up-and-comers to put stories into little boxes? Continue reading
The F Word: Demonizing taxes, heightening inequality
Monday was Tax Day in the US, and that’s almost universally greeted with groans and complaints. That tax word’s been so effectively demonized that it may be there’s no coming back. Is it time for a new word? Continue reading
The F Word: Cuts leave young people with no future to win
Paul Mason of the BBC called them “the graduates with no future.” They’ve been at the center of protest movements around the world, from Tunisia to Wisconsin. Continue reading
The F Word: When will it be time to cut military spending?
On Tuesday, people in more than 35 countries, as well as Columbus, Dallas, Kansas City and dozens of other cities throughout the United States will participated in the first Global Day of Action on Military Spending. Continue reading
The F Word: Shareholders fight back as Democrats compromise
The ink on the compromise that kept the government open—barely—isn’t even dry and they’re already talking about the next round of cuts in Washington. Continue reading
The F Word: Bonuses for bosses at killer corporations?
Eleven workers dead, untold volumes of sea-life poisoned and more than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the sea. If that’s what an historically good year for safety looks like at TransOcean, I’d hate to see a bad year. Continue reading
The F Word: Bringing the budget protests to New York
From Wisconsin to Indiana to right here in New York, the state capitol in Albany Wednesday night echoed as well with chants of “This is what democracy looks like” as protesters occupied the halls to protest budget cuts to education. Continue reading
The F Word: Bring the no-fly zone home to Arizona
Could Obama and his supporters take a break from celebrating so-called no-fly zones and take a look at what’s happening in Arizona? Continue reading
The F Word: Learning what unions have to teach
In a lot of the talk about attacks on labor, the focus has been on electoral politics and cash. Defunding unions will defund the Democratic party and progressive candidates who might fight for working folks. Continue reading
The F Word: Putting some bite behind Elizabeth Warren
Paul Krugman called it “The War on Elizabeth Warren.” Yves Smith wrote about “The Elizabeth Warren Rorschach Test.” There’s no doubt that the insightful Harvard professor turned administration official, tapped first to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel into the bank bailouts drives conservatives a little wild. And nothing drives them wilder than the prospect of her heading up a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that might actually protect consumers. Continue reading
The F Word: Stopping Walker’s steamroller In Wisconsin
The night that the Wisconsin Senate Republicans got together and forced through Scott Walker’s union-busting bill, many Wisconsinites cried foul. The state’s open-meetings law required more notice unless there was a true emergency. Continue reading
The F Word: When is it time for a general strike?
Sometimes things fall apart and sometime they flow together. Continue reading
The F Word: Philanthro-feudalism is the future!
China’s new economic plan is a relic of the past. It focuses on raising standards of living. How quaint! Continue reading
The F Word: Fighting over crumbs left from military spending
There’s been a joke going around the labor protests. It goes something like this: A union member, a CEO and a Tea Party member are sitting at a table with 12 cookies. The CEO grabs 11, turns to the Tea Partier and says, “The union’s out to take your cookie!” Continue reading
F Word: Banksters fighting back with higher fees
The banks are back! They’re paying out bonuses and raking in profits, we hear. But just how did they bounce back so fast? Continue reading
The F Word: Capital or community in Wisconsin
It should be the sound of the other shoe dropping, but you’ll have to listen hard to Governor Scott Walker’s budget address because most media will miss most of it. Continue reading
The F Word: Crushing workers in Wisconsin has national effects
So that’s what they mean by from welfare to work. First, you go force the poorest Americans into the workforce, then you go after their bargaining power. Wisconsin has long been the eye of this storm. Continue reading
The F Word: What we still haven’t learned about rape
When Lara Logan of CBS News came forward with the news that she had been brutally sexually assaulted by a group of men while reporting from Tahrir Square, the story caused shock waves. Logan is the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS, and it is rare for prominent women to come forward with stories of rape or sexual assault. Continue reading
The F Word: Obama should be ashamed of his budget
“This freeze would cut the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, bringing this kind of spending—domestic discretionary spending—to its lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Let me repeat that. . . .” Continue reading
The F Word: The culture war on jobs
It might be the greatest bait and switch ever pulled on the American voter. For two successive election cycles, we’ve been promised jobs, a recovering economy, attention to the Constitution. After the last one, triumphant Republican after triumphant Republican declared November’s to be an election decided on jobs. Continue reading
F Word: Outsourcing potential, forgetting workers
“We need better intelligence, the kind that is derived not from intercepting a president’s phone calls to his mistress but from hanging out with the powerless.” Continue reading
The F Word: A bright bipartisan future on civil liberties?
Lately, when the term “bipartisan compromise” is tossed around, it tends to mean that Democrats are giving in to the Republican position on issues, or that women’s rights are being sacrificed to some larger purpose. Continue reading
The F Word: Killing the Internet not just a problem in Egypt
As I write, Egypt is struggling with near-total Internet and communications shut off, and not just Egyptians are grappling with the implications. Can the flow of social media information to an entire country simply be cut? Apparently, yes. And that’s not just an Egyptian concern. Continue reading
The F Word: Inequality drives Egyptians to Streets, but ours is worse
It’s amazing what inequality can drive people to, eventually. Just look at Egypt Continue reading
The F Word: Let’s admit the truth about American Royals
Posted on April 29, 2011 by Laura Flanders
According to polls, only about 6 percent of Americans are following with any close attention the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. But that’s not stopping the media fascination on both sides of the Atlantic with American’s supposed fascination with Britain’s royals. Continue reading →