By Kazu Haga / Waging Nonviolence
“It’s okay mommy…. It’s okay, I’m right here with you…”
Those were the words of four-year-old Dae’Anna, consoling her mother Lavish Reynolds after she witnessed the police shoot and kill her boyfriend Philando Castile.
Those words are now scarred into the psyche of America, much like words that came before it: “Hands up, don’t shoot.” “I can’t breath.” “It’s not real.” [Read more…]
By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos
In 2015, the two million annual visitors to California’s Joshua Tree National Park spent almost $97 million in the surrounding communities. Those same visitors created 1,341 job,s which had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $128 million, according to an April 21, 2016 statement from the National Park Service. And still, knowing how much his constituents rely on the existence of a National Park within his congressional district, Republican Rep. Paul Cook has done everything within his power to hinder any growth of the Park Service, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in August.
Paul Cook is one of 20 Republican representatives and senators, known as the Anti-Parks Caucus, who actively work to sell off public lands to private parties for exploitation. The American Legislative Council (ALEC) has led the charge in western states, and broken ground for action on a federal level. Most of the members of the anti-parks caucus are members of the tea party, have been challenged by a tea party candidate, or are in uncompetitive districts where they have little to fear from their failure to represent their constituents. [Read more…]
Editor’s Note: According to the Dallas police press conference this morning there is only one suspect. Other arrests turned out to be in error. He has been positively identified as Micah X. Johnson, with no known associations with terrorist or Black Lives Matter.
Staff / AlterNet
Dallas police officers were ambushed by snipers on Thursday night after a peaceful protest by Black Lives Matter prompted by the killing by police of black men in the past 48 hours in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Dallas police report that 11 officers were shot and five have died. Reportedly, one civilian was also shot. [Read more…]
By Jill Richardson / OtherWords
Imagine painstakingly making up your way up the cables of Yosemite National Park’s famous Half Dome peak — only to see swooshes and slogans encouraging you to “Just Do It.”
“Welcome to Half Dome,” a gleaming banner greets you, “sponsored by Nike.”
Unfortunately, it’s a possibility. As the coverage swells over Barack and Michelle Obama’s recent visit to Yosemite and Carlsbad Caverns, Americans are learning that national parks will now start selling naming rights. [Read more…]
By Angela Glover Blackwell / Yes! Magazine
Shelia Williams, a single mother of five in Memphis, Tennessee, was putting herself through college when the city cut bus routes within the low-income, primarily Black neighborhood where she and her family lived. She almost failed her classes and had to derail her career goals simply because she couldn’t get to school.
Determined to finish school, Williams co-founded the Memphis Bus Riders Union, which successfully advocated to restore bus service. They did this by showing the Memphis Area Transit Authority how essential public transit routes were to opportunity for low-income residents in the city. Today, Williams is a member of the Memphis Area Transit Authority Board of Commissioners and remains an avid advocate for public transit in her city.
Williams’ case is an inspiring story, but this was a battle she shouldn’t have had to wage in the first place. [Read more…]
By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams
In the aftermath of the that killed hundreds in Iraq over the weekend, Muslims took to social media to remind the world that the primary targets of terrorist attacks are Muslims. [Read more…]
By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos
The latest House Benghazi committee, which Republicans hoped would sink Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes, released its final report early—because there was nothing in it worth saving for an election eve scandal.
Rep. Trey Gowdy and his fellow Republicans stretched out the probe (the eighth such committee to investigate the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans) to two years and spent $7 million to try to dig up new dirt on former Secretary of State Clinton. They failed. [Read more…]
W. Scott Koenig / A Gringo in Mexico
When El Gringo and family roll into the municipality of Ensenada, we’re usually headed for a weekend, tour or a great day in the Valle de Guadalupe, just northeast of Baja California’s third largest city. It’s been a while since we’ve “done Ensenada”, and we certainly haven’t done the “new” Ensenada that’s risen to culinary fame in the past decade based on it’s street food scene and boasting rights to several of Pellegrino’s Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.
So when we were invited to enjoy a weekend and tour at the Hotel Coral and Marina, we set our itinerary to new adventure, loaded up the trusty Jeep and proceeded south across the border. [Read more…]
By Peter Dreier and Dick Flacks / AlterNet
July 4 is an occasion for Americans to express their patriotism. But the ways we do so are as diverse as our nation.
To some, patriotism means “my country—right or wrong.” To others, it means loyalty to a set of principles, and thus requires dissent and criticism when those in power violate those standards. One version of patriotism suggests “Love it or leave it.” The other version means “Love it and fix it. [Read more…]
By Martha Rosenberg / AlterNet
Padded bras for kindergarteners with growing breasts to make them more comfortable? Sixteen percent of U.S. girls experiencing breast development by the age of 7? Thirty percent by the age of 8? Clearly something is affecting the hormones of U.S. girls—a phenomenon also seen in other developed countries. Girls in poorer countries seem to be spared—until they move to developed countries.
No scientists dispute that precocious or early-onset puberty is on the rise but they do not agree on the reasons. Is it bad diets and lack of exercise that cause growing obesity? Is it soft drinks themselves, even when not linked to obesity? Is it the common chemicals known as endocrine disrupters that exert estrogen-like effects (and also cause obesity)? Is it the many legal, unlabeled hormones used in the U.S. to fatten livestock? Some researchers even believe precocious puberty could be triggered by sociological factors like having no father in the home or even stress. [Read more…]
By Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams
Puerto Rico’s finances are poised to be controlled by what critics dub “a colonial control board” after the U.S. Senate on Wednesday advanced the so-called PROMESA legislation.
Senate approval of the bill would mean “a really dark day for the people of Puerto Rico, who are completely opposed to this bill.”
[Read more…]
By Aaminah Khan / Yes! Magazine
When I first came out, I thought I might be the only queer Muslim in the world. I was 19 years old, born and raised in the West. While I had Muslim friends and gay friends, I didn’t know anyone but me who was both.
The idea of coming out to the Muslims in my life—mostly people of my parents’ generation who existed in my mind as a forbidding monolith hushing me at Jummah prayers—was unthinkable. My only option, if I wanted friends around whom I could be my whole self, was a backwards coming-out of sorts. Rather than being a queer person in Muslim spaces, I could be a Muslim in queer ones. [Read more…]
