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Far too many progressives discuss changing the Democratic Party from the inside. It is the central effort of many members of Our Revolution (a group of Bernie Sanders supporters), Democracy Spring, and other activist groups. There is the belief that electing more progressive candidates as Democrats, and putting widespread pressure on incumbents, will force the party to move to the left. Unfortunately, we have been there, tried that, and had our hearts broken.

Bernie Sanders’ entire presidential primary campaign was based on changing the Democratic Party from within. He wanted the party to stop using Super-PAC funds. He asked for it to implement a single-payer healthcare system. He demanded that climate change be a central issue, demanding immediate action. It is exactly because of those issues, and his desire to permanently alter the Democratic Party, that he was crushed by the DNC.

Kevin Boyce

Although Kevin Boyce’s tenure as Ohio treasurer from 2009-2010 was riddled with scandal, Boyce claims he knew nothing about the corruption carried out by his deputy treasurer, Amer Ahmad, who is now in federal prison. Boyce’s claim was called into question this year by federal Securities and Exchange Commission filings.  

Those filings are against others and don’t charge Boyce with any legal violations. But the allegations in them, along with Boyce’s responses, deserve to be considered by voters in deciding whether to make Boyce a Franklin County commissioner in the November 8 election.  

The filings involve State Street Bank and Trust Company. According to the SEC, the Massachusetts bank in early 2010 paid not only kickbacks to Ahmad but also contributions to Boyce’s campaign in return for lucrative state contracts to provide custody services for three Ohio pension funds.

What is so remarkable and troubling about the presentation we’ve heard today is that what Russia really wants from the U.N. is credit. Congratulations, Russia, you’ve stopped, for a couple days, from using incendiary weapons. Thank you for not using cluster bombs in civilian areas. Thank you for staying the hand of brutality with regard to bunker buster weapons. You don’t get congratulations and get credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week.
– Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, October 26, 2016

amantha Power is the face of American diplomacy at the UN, where she gives ardent voice to American hypocrisy, deceit, intellectual dishonesty, and mockery of the rest of the world. Appalling as her performance has been, her portrayal is accurate, right down to her denial-laden confidence in American exceptionalism.


 

Picture, if you will, video footage of vintage (early 2016) Donald Trump buffoonery with the CEO of CBS Leslie Moonves commenting on major media's choice to give Trump vastly more air time than other candidates: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."

That's the introduction to a powerful critique of the U.S. media. A new film screens in New York and Los Angeles this week called All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone.

 

 

Imagine if a local business in your town invented a brand new tool that was intended to have an almost magical effect thousands of miles away. However, where the tool was kept and used locally became an area unsafe for children. Children who got near this tool tended to have increased blood pressure and increased stress hormones, lower reading skills, poorer memories, impaired auditory and speech perception, and impaired academic performance.

Most of us would find this situation at least a little concerning, unless the new invention was designed to murder lots of people. Then it'd be just fine.

Now, imagine if this same new tool ruined neighborhoods because people couldn't safely live near it. Imagine if the government had to compensate people but kick them out of living near the location of this tool. Again, I think, we might find that troubling if mass murder were not the mission.

 

I grew up in a working class household with a stay-at-home mom and a dad who started working on the family farm when he was a small boy. My late father spent much of his working life in construction work, operating heavy machinery. He also supervised several county landfills. Well into his seventies, he could still work rings around men decades younger.  He used to say that he didn’t trust a man who claimed to work, but wasn’t dirty by the end of the day. Like a little boy, he loved getting dirty, and the dirtier, the better. Dirty work was honest work.


Like my late father, Zimring, an associate professor of Sustainability Studies in the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute, has a keen interest in dirt and trash. He has written another book on trash and recycling, and is the general editor of the Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage. Clearly dirt, trash and waste are important to Zimring. In Clean and White shows us that a lot can be said about the social impact of trash and waste.

Diane Hudson wants a new union contract that will bring her family out of poverty. She works as a janitor at the Columbus Academy, a private PreK-12 school in Gahanna. Hudson supports her elderly mother and struggles every month to make ends meet. A living wage would mean “we don’t have to be under so much stress, living paycheck to paycheck,” she said.

On October 29 hundreds of janitors held a rally at the Great American Tower in Cincinnati to kick off contract negotiations. The new contracts will affect 1,800 members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 in central and southern Ohio, including 800 janitors who work in the Columbus area. The current Columbus contract, which expires December 31, covers  janitors who clean the offices of Columbus’ largest companies, including Nationwide, Huntington, JP Morgan Chase, and AEP.

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