Conservatives
Last week, the Ohio ballot board – led by the Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose – approved the wording of Issue 1, a November ballot measure that will ask voters if the state constitution should guarantee a right to abortion, contraception, fertility treatment and miscarriage care. The new lawsuit accuses the ballot board’s Republican majority of
Capitalism
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act introduced modest drug pricing restrictions. In response, big pharma companies — which have seen record profits — are threatening to slow the rollout of a lifesaving drug. A Swiss pharmaceutical company announced this month that it could slow-walk bringing a potentially lifesaving drug to market — in order to reduce
Labor
A new framework for unionizations means that a company must voluntarily recognize a union or demand an election—and can no longer interfere with the election. The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling on Friday that changes the framework for unionizations, making it easier for workers to organize and harder for companies to fight back against them.
Censorship
Incident charts a disturbing spike in intimidation and violence toward journalists following hateful bombast from politicians. When police raided the office of a Kansas newspaper last week and tore through the homes of its reporters, Donald Trump’s oft-heard refrain that the US media is “the enemy of the people” might not have been uppermost in the officers’
Equality
Unlike many classic works of sci-fi, Star Trek offered an optimistic vision of humanity’s future — one where democracy triumphs, exploitation is ended, and everyone’s material needs are met. It’s the year 2364 and a tatty old space shuttle containing former Wall Street capitalist Ralph Offenhouse, who was cryogenically frozen in 1994, has just been discovered floating
Stupidity
Pro-war hawks love to claim that the US military is “the greatest fighting force” in human history. It’s certainly exceptional in two ways: its obscene budget, and its ability to keep its record of death and destruction nearly invisible to the US public. How is the US military truly “exceptional”? Let me count the ways.