This Is What Happens When You Rip a Hole in the Safety Net

America’s social safety net, such as it is, has recently come under some scrutiny. Chana Joffe-Walt’s in-depth exploration of the increase in people getting Social Security Disability benefits at NPR got many listeners buzzing. Then in The Wall Street Journal, Damian Paletta and Caroline Porter looked at the increase in the use of food stamps, called SNAP. All three journalists look at the increasing dependence on these programs and come away puzzled: Why are so many people now getting disability and food stamp payments?

Wayne LaPierre Is Winning

The December 14, 2012, massacre of twenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School seemed like one of those rare moments when the sheer monstrosity of a preventable tragedy breaks through our national stupor and galvanizes political action. In the days after the shooting, prominent opponents of gun control were jolted into reconsidering their position. “Everything should be on the table,” said West Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin, a heretofore enthusiastic advocate of gun rights. Public support for an assault weapons ban climbed to
60 percent, and more than 90 percent supported universal background checks for gun purchases. President Obama forcefully urged federal action, laying out a comprehensive gun control plan; he mobilized Organizing for Action, the nonprofit that grew out of his re-election campaign, to push for it. The rhetorical high point of his State of the Union address was a sonorous call for a timely vote on such a bill, because the victims of gun violence surely deserved at least that.

'We Were Handcuffing Kids For No Reason': Stop-And-Frisk Goes On Trial

On Saturday, March 23, sixteen year-old Kimani Gray was buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, surrounded by family and friends. Gray had been killed two weeks earlier by a pair of plainclothes New York City police officers, who shot him seven times on an East Flatbush sidewalk. The officers claim the teenager pointed a gun at them, but witnesses, along with family and friends, vehemently dispute the NYPD's narrative. In the days before Gray’s funeral, hundreds of residents filled the street to display their outrage. Dozens were arrested, some as young as thirteen. As mourners prepared to lower the teen's metallic-blue casket into the ground, a young man in a black T-shirt featuring a picture of Gray broke from the crowd and sat in the grass next to a headstone. Resting his elbows on his knees, he lowered his head and began to cry.

Michael Dell: The Making of an American Oligarch

Before he became the 15th-richest American, Michael Dell was hailed as a corporate wunderkind. His eponymous computer company's "dazzlingly efficient" factory in Austin, Texas, "may be the best hope of keeping blue-collar jobs in the United States," proclaimed the New York Times in 2004. Recently, Dell Inc. has been better known for gobbling up federal contracts and pulling financial shenanigans to line its executives' pockets—all while exploiting tax loopholes, outsourcing production, and laying off American workers.

Ontario Tuition Hike Cap Reduced; Students, Schools Unhappy

TORONTO - In a move aimed at striking a balance between the needs of students and public post-secondary institutions, the Ontario government announced Thursday it is lowering the cap on average tuition fee increases over the next four years.

But the news didn't appear to satisfy either student advocates or representatives for colleges and universities.

Oilsands Environmental Monitoring Data To Be Made Public

OTTAWA - The federal and Alberta governments are finally ready to make research and data from their oilsands monitoring program public.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent and his Alberta counterpart, Diana McQueen, are expected to launch a new data portal next Wednesday at an event at Carleton University in Ottawa.

'Racist' Nanaimo Daily News Letter About First Nations Sparks Outrage

The Nanaimo Daily News has apologized for printing a "racist" letter that stated First Nations have a history that is "notable only for underachievement."

Don Olsen's letter in the Vancouver Island newspaper on Wednesday mounts a pile of criticism on First Nations, saying they "never 'discovered' the wheel," that they never came up with a written language and that they "only 'figured out' a drum and a rattle for musical instruments."

The Other Rosa Parks: Now 73, Claudette Colvin Was First to Refuse Giving Up Seat on Montgomery Bus

At a ceremony unveiling a statue in her honor last month, President Obama called Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus a "singular act of disobedience." But nine months before Parks’ historic action, a 15-year-old teenager named Claudette Colvin did the very same thing. She was arrested and her case led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s order for the desegregation of Alabama’s bus system. Now 73, Claudette Colvin joins us for a rare interview along with Brooklyn College Professor Jeanne Theoharis, author of the "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Theoharis says Parks’ act of defiance may not have happened if not for Colvin’s nine months before. Colvin says learning about African-American history in school inspired her act. "I could not move because history had me glued to the seat," she recalls telling the bus driver and the police officer who came to arrest her. "It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing down on one shoulder, and Harriet Tubman’s hand pushing down on another shoulder."

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Source: Democracy Now!
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Drawing blood from stones: The relentless tuition fee hike

Ontario announced a new tuition fee framework today. It's the first time that the Liberal government has changed it in seven years.

In 2006, Dalton McGuinty punched students in the face with a five per cent, on average, fee increase. It was supposed to last four years, but was extended, painfully, until 2012.

During the 2011 Ontario election, the Liberals introduced a grant to help offset the burden of these fees for some students. To those of us who spent days analyzing the Liberal proposal and strategy, it was clear that they had hoped to divert some of the negative attention on their tuition policy by offering a confusing, runner-up prize.

Harper government appears uninterested in Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations

The Conservative government has not consulted Chief Electoral Officer, Marc Mayrand, on possible changes to Canada's elections act.

Nor has the Government acted on recommendations the Chief Electoral officer made before the last election, in 2010.

Had some of those recommendations been implemented before the 2011 election, the Chief Electoral Officer would have had more effective tools to investigate the many abuses that have been reported since then.

All of this came out in a briefing Mayrand held for journalists following the release of his newest report: 'Preventing Deceptive Communications with Electors -- Recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada Following the 41st General Election'.