Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

100 Years Ago Today, Farmers and Socialists Established the Country’s First Public Bank

One hundred years ago July 28, a bank in Bismarck, N.D., opened its doors for the very first time. This would have been an unremarkable event, likely lost to history, except for the fact that it was a public bank, owned by all the residents of the state. A century on, the Bank of North Dakota (BND) is still the only publicly owned bank in the continental United States (a second public bank was recently established in American Samoa)—though potentially not for long.

The BND is enjoying renewed time in the limelight as activists look to the institution as an example of how to regain democratic control over finance, and in the process confront a myriad of pressing problems from the climate crisis to gentrification. Rather than having public funds be extracted from local communities to fuel Wall Street speculation, public banks can ensure that those funds are used to stabilize local economies and support local public priorities. As Ellen Brown, chair of the Public Banking Institute, writes in her new book, Banking on the People, “a public banking system … can fund the goods, services and infrastructure required to satisfy the needs of the people and the economy without unsustainable debt, taxation or environmental degradation."*

That a public bank is resonating with people across the United States today shouldn’t be surprising. If we look back at the conditions that led a diverse group of farmers, socialists and populists to struggle against the odds to create the BND in the first place—corporate domination, an economy hobbled by debt burdens, gaping inequalities, ineffective reformists, bought politicians —we find they are remarkably similar to those we face today in our new “gilded age.”

At the dawn of the 20th century, the remote and relatively new state of North Dakota was firmly under the control of corporate interests. Heavily indebted small farmers and small businesspeople were beholden to terms set by out-of-state railroad companies and grain monopolies (both backed by big corporate banks) in order to access broader markets. The railroads in particular (which owned vast swathes of land in the state) were pernicious tax avoiders, depriving the government of desperately needed development funds. The state government was easily captured by these powerful interests and was, for a time, essentially under the control of a corrupt former railroad agent named Alexander McKenzie and the Republican political machine he ran. Early activist efforts to break this political and economic stranglehold through regulation and legal action were undermined by threatened capital strikes (for example, corporate owners threatened to close their grain elevators when faced with regulation in 1891).  Ultimately, these reform efforts had no answer to the central problem: that the large corporations of the day had the power to dictate economic conditions and relationships and the state lacked the financial means to advance alternatives.

In 1915, former Socialist Party organizer and flax farmer Arthur C. Townley formed the Nonpartisan League (NPL), which, among other things, advocated for worker’s compensation, a graduated state income tax, and public ownership of banks, mills, warehouses, insurance programs and other enterprises as a way of wresting economic power from the corporations. Buoyed by widespread support among farmers, NPL-backed candidates won elections in 1916 and 1918, gaining control of the state legislature and governorship. Once in office, they began to implement their radical yet popular economic agenda.

In July 1919, the BND was launched with $2 million in capital and a requirement that all state and local government funds be deposited in the bank. With these funds and popular support, the BND was able to endure an early Wall Street counterattack, namely a boycott of the state’s bonds. The BND survived, and ultimately thrived, despite the fact that the NPL was not able to withstand the political reaction to its success. Opponents organized the Independent Voters Association, a corporate-funded effort that hoped to see the experiment dashed, declaring during the 1920 race that “the real issue in the campaign in the state is between Americanism and socialism.” NPL candidates lost control of the lower house of the legislature after those elections, the new lawmakers passed measures undermining NPL policies and governor Lynn Frazier was narrowly recalled in 1921.

While the NPL’s political fortunes revived during the depression of the 1930s and the party exists to this day as part of the state’s official Democratic Party affiliate, the important lesson for activists today is how successful, popular and ultimately resilient institutions like the BND (and the accompanying publicly owned grain mill and elevator) became once they were established.   

Between 1919 and 1933 the BND lent almost $41 million to more than 16,000 farmers in the state, and during the Great Depression the bank helped the state uniquely sustain itself and recover quickly (foreshadowing similar success in helping the state withstand the 2008/09 financial crisis). While school teachers across the country were being paid essentially in IOUs that were typically redeemed with a 15% loss, the BND was able to pay them in full. In the 1940s, farmland that was foreclosed on during the Depression was sold back, in many cases, to the same families that lost them.

In 1945, the bank began to return a portion of its profits to North Dakota’s general fund—the first of more than $1 billion total that has been returned to the state over the decades, helping to fund various state services. In 1967 it made its first federally insured student loan, and today the bank administers its own student loan program that provides North Dakota residents (and those attending North Dakota colleges) with a variety of benefits (including low/competitive interest rates, no fees and refinancing options after college). Today, BND may not be the socialist engine many NPL planners had in mind (it works with rather than competes with or displaces private sector banks, for instance), but it is, as Gov. William Guy (D-NPL) advocated for in the 1960s, an “engine for economic development” in the public interest. Last year, BND reported $159 million in net earnings, with a total $7 billion in assets and a loan portfolio of $4.5 billion.

While the Bank of North Dakota’s record is impressive, it is important not to lose perspective. As a public institution, it is ultimately accountable to the democratic institutions of the state, a state that has changed considerably in the past 100 years and is now dominated by the Republican Party politically and increasingly by the oil and gas industry economically. Recently, the BND was widely, and rightly, criticized for lending the state as much as $10 million to cover the costs of policing the American Indian-led Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Yet despite these risks, it is this promise of democratic control of finance that is most appealing to today’s activists.

In the years since the financial crisis, vibrant campaigns for public banks have emerged all across the country, seeking to resist corporate domination and elite control and build new, more equitable and sustainable institutions. Some of the most advanced campaigns are in California. Following a 2018 referendum loss in Los Angeles (where 42%—nearly half a million people—voted in favor of a public bank), activists have taken their fight to the state legislature. Recently, a statewide bill to clear some roadblocks for the establishment of local and regional public banks passed the General Assembly and has moved on to the State Senate (where it passed two key committees in June and July).

Whatever the bill’s ultimate fate, the campaign that the California Public Banking Alliance has put together is truly remarkable. More than 100 organizations representing 3.3 million Californians have endorsed the bill. These include labor unions (such as the California Nurses Association, SEIU California, AFSCME California and UFCW Western States Council), community groups (such as People Organizing To Demand Environmental and Economic Rights and Healthcare for All- California), environmental groups (such as 350.org, Friends of the Earth and the Local Clean Energy Alliance) and political organizations (such as the California Democratic Party and the Green Party of California). Moreover, 10 city governments have backed the effort, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego.      

In California and elsewhere in the country, public banking has very quickly moved from a fringe interest to a mainstream political issue. This is testament to both the long-term success of examples like the Bank of North Dakota and to the efforts of a new generation of activists and movement builders who, like their predecessors 100 years ago, understand how critically important control of finance and capital is to the hope of building a more equitable, just and democratic world.  

*Ellen Brown is also a fellow at The Democracy Collaborative, where the authors work, and Banking on the People was published by The Democracy Collaborative.

Status Quo of mobile pages on the internet. Absolutely fucked.

The Bolsonaro Government’s Aggressive Response Shows Why Our Reporting on the Secret Brazil Archive Is So Vital

Justice Minister Moro and his defenders are trying to distract attention away from their own misconduct by fixating on the actions of those who revealed it.

The post The Bolsonaro Government’s Aggressive Response Shows Why Our Reporting on the Secret Brazil Archive Is So Vital appeared first on The Intercept.

Red Scare to put Sicko back on the map with release of best hits album “In The Alternate Timeline”

Do you guys remember Sicko, the pop-punk band from Seattle who had their heyday in the mid 90s? You might if you’re over 35 and the rest of you should start checking out their back catalog available digitally through Red Scare. Anyway, for the pre-initiated, you’ll be pleased to know that in September Red Scare will […]

The post Red Scare to put Sicko back on the map with release of best hits album “In The Alternate Timeline” appeared first on Dying Scene.

SNUFF to release new album “There’s A Lot Of It About” on Fat Wreck Chords, stream new track

Over a year in the works,Fat Wreck Chords can finally announce that the new SNUFF album, There’s a Lot of it About, will be released on September 20th! Head below to listen to a brand new song. “Dippy Egg” races with catchy hooks, horns, and non-stop melodies that exemplify just why they’ve survived for over […]

The post SNUFF to release new album “There’s A Lot Of It About” on Fat Wreck Chords, stream new track appeared first on Dying Scene.

The Reaganomics (punk) stream new demo songs from

In August The Reaganomics will be heading into the studio to record a new LP for Red Scare Industries and to get you properly stoked they’ve released a few demos, which you can stream below. Here’s what the band had to say about “The Jeff Sessions:” “In the spirit of the live action remake of Disney’s The […]

The post The Reaganomics (punk) stream new demo songs from appeared first on Dying Scene.

Dozens of Scientists Are Pushing the UN to Make Environmental Destruction a War Crime

This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. War (huh!) what is it good for? Certainly not the environment. From the U.S. dropping the herbicide agent orange on jungles in Vietnam to Saddam Hussein’s damming marshes in Iraq, human conflict has often involved the intentional infliction of wounds […]

Judge Dismisses $250 Million Lawsuit From MAGA Teen

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a $250 defamation million lawsuit filed by Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student whose video confrontation with a Native American man at the January Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, DC sparked a firestorm of controversy. Sandmann had accused the Washington Post of negligently committing libel against him.  […]

I Went to a Climate Change Denial Conference. It Made Even Less Sense Than You’d Think.

There’s no need to worry about reducing the greenhouse gases driving climate change—all that carbon dioxide is actually “greening the planet.” The Green New Deal, on the other hand, would send the country back to the stone age, or at least the pre-industrial era. Those were among the eye-popping and often-conflicting views expressed yesterday at the Heartland Institute’s 13th International Climate Change Conference, a gathering of climate change deniers that took place at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House.

The vast majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that climate change could prove devastating to life as we know it unless we take swift and sweeping action to decarbonize the economy . But those “wild predictions have been pronouncedly exaggerated,” according to the British gadfly Lord Christopher Monckton, who holds the title 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.

One of the more colorful figures in the climate denial universe, Monckton ticked off a list of problems scientists have linked to climate change that Monckton says we really don’t need to worry about. According to him, the world is seeing less, not more, drought; sea levels are falling not rising; forest fires are causing less damage; hurricane activity is decreasing, too; and carbon dioxide is actually improving the global environment by “greening” places like Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. “That’s why we need more CO2, because it greens the planet,” he declared.

Other conference panelists joined Monckton in cycling through a series of theories long debunked by peer-reviewed science. Some believe, like Monckton, that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are growing but provide more benefits than threats. (One Heritage Foundation official went so far as to suggest carbon dioxide emitters should get paid a subsidy rather than face the kind of carbon tax scheme policymakers have discussed; of course, the oil industry already does receive billions in subsidies.) Others argued that CO2 levels are in fact not rising, while still others say we should be more concerned about a coming ice age. 

“The real problem is we have a lot more to worry about with global cooling than with global warming,” said Rodger Bezdek, an energy analyst and Heartland policy advisor.

If the speakers and audience members don’t all agree on why we shouldn’t worry about climate change, the few hundred people assembled in a hotel ballroom yesterday do share a number of other ideas: chiefly, that the fossil fuel industry is under unfair attack and deserves public support, while the Green New Deal is a totalitarian communist plot to steal American liberties and cast the world into “energy poverty.”

Kevin D. Dayaratna, a senior statistician at the Heritage Foundation, told the audience the Left had already begun to take control of the country and would continue its authoritarian advance with a Green New Deal.

On the surface, times would seem to be good for Heartland and the climate change denial movement, with the world’s most prominent climate change denier living in the White House. President Donald Trump has run with many of this group’s longtime demands such as withdrawing the United States from the United Nations’ Paris climate accord and rolling back Obama-era pollution rules.

But the evidence has never been stronger that climate change is already happening and will have increasingly catastrophic impacts on human civilization (not to mention other species) unless the world takes action. Meanwhile, the surprisingly fierce rise of children activists demanding climate action has boosted public concern worldwide and helped sweep progressive politicians supporting a Green New Deal into U.S. Congress.

This may be part of why climate denialists (who prefer to be called “climate realists”) appear to be struggling to remain relevant and attract younger followers. Yesterday’s speakers and audience members were overwhelmingly old, white and male. After the first panel session, there were so many white-haired men waiting for the men’s room that a long line snaked out the door, past the gold-plated trash bins embossed with the Trump name. The line for the women’s room, by contrast, was significantly shorter.

To recruit younger generations, one audience member suggested warning them that Green New Deal supporters want to take their iPhones away and return the country to a time before electricity—never mind that electricity, in the form of solar and wind, is central to the Green New Deal proposal. (Of course, panelists and audiences expressed extreme skepticism about renewables, as well.)

Not only does the climate denial movement appear in danger of aging out, raising funds is getting more difficult. Traditionally funded by fossil fuel companies, Heartland’s oil and gas money has dried up in recent years as the scientific consensus around climate change has grown stronger, putting oil and gas companies under pressure from shareholders and the public to stop funding groups that deny the problem.

Earlier this year the libertarian Cato Institute disbanded its climate denial program, the Center for the Study of Science. And yesterday’s Heartland conference had fewer than half the number of speakers and panelists as its first International Climate Change Conference in 2008. The number of sponsoring organizations has also fallen by more than half since 2008.

Despite these developments, climate change denialism continues to get more than its fair share of media coverage, according to an analysis by the Public Citizen published Wednesday to coincide with the conference. The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization found that media coverage of climate denial by Heartland, Heritage and three other think tanks increased from 2014 to 2018.

“The mounds of scientific evidence … should lead to a radical decline in the influence of climate deniers in the media,” Allison Fisher, outreach program director for Public Citizen’s climate program, said in a press release. “Amazingly, coverage of the deniers’ messages has risen over the past five years as the climate crisis has worsened, with much of it being uncritical.”

It seems possible to conceive of a time, not all that far off in the future, when the effects of climate change will become so evident and frequent that denying it’s happening will no longer be an option. But that’s hardly a comforting thought.

The First Labor Plans of the 2020 Campaign Just Dropped. Here’s What to Make of Them.

It was a tale of two cities’ mayors (with presidential ambitions) this week. South Bend, Indiana’s Pete Buttigieg and New York’s Bill de Blasio—the two active-duty mayors among the 20 Democratic presidential candidates still on the debate stage—released their labor and workers’ rights platforms.

Both mayors include fairly robust proposals to overhaul and modernize our nation’s main labor law, the National Labor Relations Act.

But that should no longer be considered good enough. Given that Congressional Democrats’ official proposal right now, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, essentially overturns the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, adds card check under some circumstances and imposes meaningful financial penalties for employers who violate their employees’ rights, woe to the candidate who doesn’t propose to outdo it. Only one mayor, de Blasio, breaks new ground with his proposal; the other, Buttigieg, offers a survey course of think tank white papers and moderate reforms.

The Key to Safety Online Is User Empowerment, Not Censorship

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on “Protecting Digital Innocence.” The hearing covered a range of problems facing young people on the Internet today, with a focus on harmful content and privacy-invasive data practices by tech companies. While children do face problems online, some committee members seemed bent on using those problems as an excuse to censor the Internet and undermine the legal protections for free expression that we all rely on, including kids.

Don’t Censor Users; Empower Them to Choose

Though tech companies weren’t represented in the hearing, senators offered plenty of suggestions about how those companies ought to make their services safer for children. Sen. John Kennedy suggested that online platforms should protect children by scanning for “any pictures of human genitalia.”

It’s foolish to think that one set of standards would be appropriate for all children, let alone all Internet users.

Sen. Kennedy’s idea is a good example of how lawmakers sometimes misunderstand the complexity of modern-day platform moderation, and the extreme difficulty of getting it right at scale. Many online platforms do voluntarily use automated filters, human reviewers, or both to snoop out nudity, pornography, or other speech that companies deem inappropriate. But those measures often bring unintended consequences that reach much further than whatever problems the rules were intended to address. Instagram deleted one painter’s profile until the company realized the absurdity of this aggressive application of its ban on nudity. When Tumblr employed automated filters to censor nudity, it accidentally removed hundreds of completely “safe for work” images.

The problem gets worse when lawmakers attempt to legislate what they consider good content moderation. In the wake of last year’s Internet censorship law SESTA-FOSTA, online platforms were faced with an awful choice: err on the side of extreme prudishness in their moderation policies or face the risk of overwhelming liability for their users’ speech. Facebook broadened its sexual solicitation policy to the point that it could feasibly justify removing discussion of sex altogether. Craigslist removed its dating section entirely.

Legislation to “protect” children from harmful material on the Internet will likely bring similar collateral damage for free speech: when lawmakers give online platforms the impossible task of ensuring that every post meets a certain standard, those companies have little choice but to over-censor.

During the hearing, Stephen Balkam of the Family Online Safety Institute provided an astute counterpoint to the calls for a more highly filtered Internet, calling to move the discussion “from protection to empowerment.” In other words, tech companies ought to give users more control over their online experience rather than forcing all of their users into an increasingly sanitized web. We agree.

It’s foolish to think that one set of standards would be appropriate for all children, let alone all Internet users. But today, social media companies frequently make censorship decisions that affect everyone. Instead, companies should empower users to make their own decisions about what they see online by letting them calibrate and customize the content filtering methods those companies use. Furthermore, tech and media companies shouldn’t abuse copyright and other laws to prevent third parties from offering customization options to people who want them.

Congress and Government Must Do More to Fight Unfair Data-Collection Practices

Like all Internet users, kids are often at the mercy of companies’ privacy-invasive data practices, and often have no reasonable opportunity to opt out of collection, use, and sharing of their data. Congress should closely examine companies whose business models rely on collecting, using, and selling children’s personal information.

Some of the proposals floated during the hearing for protecting young Internet users’ privacy were well-intentioned but difficult to implement. Georgetown Law professor Angela Campbell suggested that platforms move all “child-directed” material to a separate website without behavioral data collection and related targeted advertising. Platforms must take measures to put all users in charge of how their data is collected, used, and shared—including children—but cleanly separating material directed at adults and children isn’t easy. It would be awful if a measure designed to protect young Internet users’ privacy made it harder for them to access materials on sensitive issues like sexual health and abuse. A two-tiered Internet undermines the very types of speech for which young Internet users most need privacy.

We do agree with Campbell that enforcement of existing children’s privacy laws must be a priority. As we’ve argued in the student privacy context, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should better enforce the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the law that requires websites and online services that are directed to children under 13 or have actual knowledge that a user is under 13 to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children for commercial purposes. The Department of Education should better enforce the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which generally prohibits schools that receive federal funding from sharing student information without parental consent.

EFF’s student privacy project catalogues the frustrations that students, parents, and other stakeholders have when it comes to student privacy. In particular, we’ve highlighted numerous examples of students effectively being forced to share data with Google through the free or low-cost cloud services and Chromebooks it provides to cash-strapped schools. We filed a complaint with the FTC in 2015 asking it to investigate Google’s student data practices, but the agency never responded. Sen. Marsha Blackburn cited our FTC complaint against Google as an example of the FTC’s failure to protect children’s privacy: “They go in, they scoop the data, they track, they follow, and they’ve got that virtual you of that child.”

While Google has made some progress since 2015, Congress should still investigate whether the relevant regulatory agencies are falling down on the job when it comes to protecting student privacy. Congress should also explore ways to ensure that users can make informed decisions about how their data is collected, used, and shared. Most importantly, Congress should pass comprehensive consumer privacy legislation that empowers users and families to bring their own lawsuits against the companies that violate their privacy rights.

Undermining Section 230 Won’t Improve Companies’ Practices

At the end of the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) turned the discussion to Section 230, the law that shields online platforms, services, and users from liability for most speech created by others. Sen. Graham called Section 230 the “elephant in the room,” suggesting that Congress use the law as leverage to force tech companies to change their practices: “We come up with best business practices, and if you meet those business practices you have a safe haven from liability, and if you don’t, you’re going to get sued.” He followed his comments with a Twitter thread claiming that kneecapping liability protections is “the best way to get social media companies to do better in this area.”

Don’t be surprised if the big tech companies fail to put up a fight against these proposals.

Sen. Graham didn’t go into detail about what “business practices” Congress should mandate, but regardless, he ought to rethink the approach of threatening to weaken Section 230. Google and Facebook are more willing to bargain away the protections of Section 230 than their smaller competitors. Nearly every major Internet company endorsed SESTA-FOSTA, a bill that made it far more difficult for small Internet startups to unseat the big players. Sen. Josh Hawley’s bill to address supposed political bias in content moderation makes the same mistake, giving more power to the large social media companies it’s intended to punish. Don’t be surprised if the big tech companies fail to put up a fight against these proposals: the day after the hearing, IBM announced support for further weakening Section 230, just like it did last time around.

More erosion of Section 230 won’t necessarily hurt big Internet companies, but it will hurt users. Under a compromised Section 230, online platforms would be incentivized to over-censor users’ speech. When platforms choose to err on the side of censorship, marginalized voices are the first to disappear.

Congress Must Consider Unintended Consequences

The problems facing young people online are complicated, and it’s essential that lawmakers carefully consider the unintended consequences of any legislation in this area.

Companies ought to help users and families customize online services for their own needs. But congressional attempts to legislate solutions to harmful Internet content by forcing companies to patrol users’ speech are fraught with the potential for collateral damage (and would likely be unconstitutional). We understand Congress’ desire to hold large Internet companies accountable, but it shouldn’t pass laws to make the Internet a more restrictive place.

At the same time, Congress does have an historic opportunity to help protect children and adults from invasive, unfair data-collection and advertising practices, both by passing strong consumer privacy legislation and by demanding that the government do more to enforce existing privacy laws.

This Summer, Take Some Time to Stand Up for Net Neutrality

As we head into the August, Congress will be on recess and most of your senators and representatives will be heading back to their home states. That means it’ll be easier for you to reach out and talk to them or their staff and ask them to act on important legislation. Earlier this year, the Save the Internet Act—a bill which would restore the net neutrality protections of the 2015 Open Internet Order and make them the law of the land—passed the House of Representatives. The Senate needs to be pressured into following suit.

To help you do that, we’re updating and relaunching our Net Neutrality Defense Guide. Last year, the Defense Guide was focused on using a vehicle called the Congressional Review Act (the CRA) to overturn the FCC’s repeal. Since the Senate voted for the CRA with a bipartisan majority vote, last year’s guide focused on getting the House of Representatives to vote.

This year, we have the opposite situation. Since the House has voted for the Save the Internet Act and the Senate has not, and our guide has been updated to reflect the new bill, the new target, and the new arguments we’ve heard for and against the Save the Internet Act.

Net neutrality means that ISPs like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon don’t get to block websites, slow speeds on certain sites, or make deals that give faster speeds to some content and not others. It means that you—and not your ISP—control your experience online. A free and open Internet depends on net neutrality to maintain a level playing field, which disappears once ISPs are free to do whatever they want with your traffic. Established players—or companies under the same umbrella as the ISP (like, say, HBO and AT&T)—shouldn’t get to leverage their money and connections to get to customers more easily than competitors with better products, but less money.

We can prevent that by passing strong net neutrality protections, like those in the Save the Internet Act. The Senate needs to know that this is an important issue, supported by a majority of Americans, and that we want them to vote on this bill.

The Net Neutrality Defense Guide is built to empower both regular people and local organizations to make themselves heard on this issue. It includes:

A how-to on setting up in-person meetings with senators
Tips on how to get press coverage and place op-eds in local papers
A sample letter to send to senators
A sample call script for calling local and DC offices of senators
Basic talking points and counters to common arguments against net neutrality
An image pack you can use and remix for your own campaigns

The guide is located here, along with a downloadable pdf version. Get out there and make yourself heard!

SysAdmin 101
A collection of #sysadmin articles by @kyle.

This ebook is #free to download. No email or anything required. Enjoy! https://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1340386
#SysAdminDay #sysadminday2019

Inside the Courtroom Where Every Asylum Seeker Gets Rejected

In February 2018, in a small courtroom in rural Louisiana, an Eritrean man was fighting an impossible battle. The man, whom I’ll call Abraham—he asked that his real name not be used—was trying to convince immigration judge Agnelis Reese that he should receive asylum in the United States. He told Reese he had been imprisoned for […]

The Secret History of Why Soda Companies Switched From Sugar to High-Fructose Corn Syrup

In a mesmerizing recent article, Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy recounts the surprising backstory of one of corporate marketing’s greatest flops: Coca-Cola’s quickly aborted 1985 effort to tweak its formula and convince consumers to accept “New Coke.” Tim Murphy is on this week’s episode of Bite, talking about New Coke and doing a blind taste-test: The […]

You’re Going Places, Kid

How to make art: A step-by-step guide.

Ohio Republicans Balked at a Nuclear Bailout, so the Industry Elected New Republicans — and Walked Away with $1.1 Billion

A newly elected state legislature, backed by a dark-money effort linked primarily to the nuclear industry, overcame years of opposition to pass the bailout.

The post Ohio Republicans Balked at a Nuclear Bailout, so the Industry Elected New Republicans — and Walked Away with $1.1 Billion appeared first on The Intercept.

I’m Not Your Anti-Vaxxer Scare Tactic

An autistic child is not a burden, nor a reason to not vaccinate.

Amy Klobuchar Was Grilled About the Eric Garner Case at the NAACP Forum. Her Answer Didn’t Go Over Well.

At an NAACP forum for presidential candidates in Detroit on Wednesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was asked whether she believed federal prosecutors should have pressed charges against a New York police officer who killed Eric Garner in 2014 after putting him in an illegal chokehold. “That is for the justice system to decide,” she said, and […]