On the surface, the U.S. Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act and the national non-discussion on poverty have little in common. The former is about whether the racially discriminatory history of certain parts of the country merits their being placed under special scrutiny when it comes to how they shape their 21st-century ballot […]

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In summer 2011, a year after bp capped its disastrous Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and the national media had moved on, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) received a letter as unexpected as it was urgent. Michael Robichaux, a Louisiana physician treating individuals made sick by the disaster, explained: “This has been […]

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There are some things that fail to register in transcripts of oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Such as contempt. When I sat in on the Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin arguments last October, I was impressed with Justice Antonin Scalia’s contempt for the attorneys defending the university’s modest affirmative-action program. Reading […]

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Having been a “hard-core” EPA whistleblower since the Love Canal toxic-waste contamination case in 1977, I am amazed at how successful the major polluting oligarchies have been in hoodwinking the public and controlling the government’s ability to prevent major environmental catastrophes. Take, for example, the basic issue of protecting first responders. Everybody in government and […]

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(Click image to enlarge) The good news regarding capital punishment is that 21 countries carried out executions in 2012, the same number as the previous year but down from 28 countries 10 years earlier. The top five (the U.S. is No. 5) executed 682 people, excluding the uncounted thousands executed in China. “Those five countries […]

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