The Great Albert Camus On Rebellion

In an epoch of increasingly violent uprisings and rebellions, the philosopher offers wise words on a more liberating kind of rebellion.

How To Deepen The Progressive Bench

The Article: Deepening the progressive bench by Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Washington Post.

The Text: In 1973, a small but powerful group of right-wing state legislators and activists met in Chicago. They gathered to form an organization for those who believe that government, in their words, ought to be limited and “closest to the people.” And since, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts and Mitt Romney, we know that corporations are, in fact, people, it makes sense that Exxon Mobil, Wal-Mart and Koch Industries are among the funders of this secretive and influential group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, known by its sweet-sounding acronym ALEC.

For nearly forty years, ALEC has quietly and successfully pushed its extremist agenda in state assemblies across the country. As The Nation and the Center for Media Democracy exposed last summer — work recently cited by The New York Times’ Paul Krugman — ALEC literally writes state laws by providing fully drafted model legislation to more than 2,000 state legislators. This corporate leviathan backed the recent national conservative push to further enrich the one percent while rolling back workers’ rights, inventing new ways to harass and debase women and suppressing the vote. They also wrote the so-called “Stand Your Ground” gun bills that now blight some 20 states across the country and are implicated in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

Continue Reading

A Cartoon History Of Afghanistan

The same could be said about Vietnam. When will we ever learn?

Who’s Not Paying Their Taxes? Some Major Corporations.

The Article: Tax research group finds dozens of U.S. companies paying no tax

The Text: More than two dozen Fortune 500 companies paid no U.S. federal income taxes in recent years partly because of a corporate tax break that is broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, a consumer group said on Monday.

In at least half of the cases cited by the group, companies used accelerated depreciation, a tax provision that allows increased deductions in the early years of the life of an asset.

Citizens for Tax Justice, which advocates steeper corporate taxes, said it surveyed major U.S. companies and found that 26 on average paid no net federal income taxes between 2008 and 2011, among them General Electric and Duke Energy.

Continue Reading

Bill Nye On The Importance Of Science

Amid anti-science hysteria, reason comes in the form of a bow tie.