Artwork by IAN KAY THE NATION: The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that. At a time when a popular slogan was “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand,” Bill Clinton seemed to get us. When Toni Morrison dubbed him our first black president, we nodded our heads. We had our boy in […]
Search Results for: bernie sanders
Q&A w/ Karen Finley, Performance Art Pioneer, Free Speech Martyr, Indomitable Culture Warrior
Karen Finley, Return Of The Chocolate Smeared Woman, circa 1994 BY JOANN LOVIGLIO A quarter-century after its release, Karen Finley’s Shock Treatment still packs a punch. It reads like a self-exorcism. Filled with rage, but also humor and a lot of intelligence, it is a skewering of cultural taboos, patriarchy and privilege. She grew up in the Midwest and was soon drawn to the creative hub of 1970s San Francisco, where she hung out at City Lights with Richard Brautigan and Gregory Corso, and had Kathy Acker as a teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute. Finley isn’t one to […]
REALITY CHECK: Farewell To Dr. Know Nothing
BY BEN LEHMAN As the Syrian conflict and the threat of ISIS continue to dominate national headlines, a major shift has occurred in the focus of the 2016 Presidential race. Foreign policy has taken center stage as the ongoing refugee crisis, the attacks in Paris last month, and most recently the shooting in San Bernardino have intensified the public’s concern over national security. Voters are making it clear they seek a President who has the knowledge and capability to protect them in times of crisis. Candidates have laid out their strategies to defeat ISIS and the broader threat of […]
ABOUT LAST NIGHT: Advantage Hillary
Artwork by SARAH FERGUSON BY BEN LEHMAN After a summer plagued by an email scandal and declining favorability, Hillary Clinton has lately been surging in the polls and reestablishing herself as the Democratic frontrunner for the nomination. Her strong performance in the first debate and a successful Benghazi hearing combined to form a powerful resurgence, thus putting pressure on her opponents to defeat her in Saturday’s debate in Iowa. However, Clinton once again demonstrated her formidable political skills and emerged from the debate unscathed. Topics of the debate ranged from the minimum wage to gun control to healthcare. However, because […]
THE MOUTH THAT ROARED: Q&A w/ Bill Burr
Illustration by Ari Bennett When Bill Burr plays the Wells Fargo Center on Friday and Madison Square Gardens on Saturday, he joins an elite club: the arena-rockers of comedy. Not bad for a salty ginger Masshole* former forklift operator from Canton, Mass. So last week we got him on the horn. DISCUSSED: The ’83 Sixers; his forthcoming animated TV show F Is For Family; playing Madison Square Gardens like he’s the goddamn Aerosmith of comedy; why he’s a licensed helicopter pilot; impending drone-triggered air disasters; The Spectrum; how bloggers make more money than the president (this is news to us); […]
FEEL THE BERN: Speaking Truth To Power
The magnanimity, selflessness and sheer balls — not to mention the scorching indictment of the media’s herd mentality and the resulting inanity of the political discourse in this country in the year 2015 — of Bernie Sanders in this moment showed leadership — not cunning, not calculation, not talking points, not poll-tested, focus-grouped gotcha zingers but real leadership — above and beyond anything else offered on that debate stage last night.
MEDIA: New York Times Public Editor Tells The Gray Lady To Come On And Feel The Bern
NEW YORK TIMES: For The Times, Bernie Sanders’s entry into the presidential race was almost a nonevent. Although many candidates’ declarations were treated on the front page with considerable fanfare, Mr. Sanders’s was tucked inside the paper on Page A21. Since that time, the Vermont senator has received considerable attention from The Times, but for his supporters, not nearly enough. And the tone of the coverage, many complain, has sometimes been derogatory or dismissive, and has been focused on personality, not issues. […] Looking at August alone, The Times ran 14 articles on Mr. Sanders, compared with 54 on […]
WORTH REPEATING: You’re A Rich Girl
Illustration by ALEX FINE BUSINESS INSIDER: Hillary Clinton’s multimillion dollar fortune has caused some negative headlines during the media tour for the release of her new book “Hard Choices,” which is widely seen as a prelude to a potential 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton responded to criticism of her wealth in an interview with the Guardian newspaper published Saturday night by suggesting Americans won’t be concerned about the more than $100 million her family has reportedly earned in recent years because they’re not “truly well off.” “They don’t see me as part of the problem,” Clinton said of Americans who are […]
THE HUNGER GAMES: We Are Living The Dream
NATION OF CHANGE: The few rich men who control the Capitol have successfully managed to consolidate the majority of the nation’s wealth into their hands. The Capitol has taken away food stamps from hungry families and given it to their rich benefactors in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, and other forms of corporate welfare. Career politicians are even smashing up the possessions of homeless people with a sledgehammer with impunity, while wearing designer clothes. These rich men also control the news broadcasted on the Capitol’s airwaves that brainwashes the impoverished masses into believing their suffering is their own fault, that they’re only starving because they don’t know how to work […]
TRUTH DIGGER: Q&A With Christopher Hedges, Author, Journalist, American Who Tells The Truth
Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies.[1] His most recent book, which he wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, is “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012). Hedges and Sacco, who illustrated the book, reported from the poorest pockets in the United States including the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota, Camden, New Jersey, the coal fields of southern West Virginia, the nation’s produce fields and in the last chapter from the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park.[2] Hedges is also known as […]
Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid Cuts On The Table
NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. Obama, appearing at the White House after meeting with Speaker John A. Boehner and other Republican and Democratic leaders, said both sides had pledged to come to an agreement before Aug. 2, when the Treasury Department says the government will reach a debt ceiling that will make further borrowing impossible. “Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” Mr. Obama said of the substance of the talks, which are ranging across entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, as well as tax-related measures like the closing of loopholes and tax breaks for the wealthy […]
WARREN BUFFETT: Trickle Down Economics Is A Lie
BLOOMBERG NEWS: Billionaire Warren Buffett said that rich people should pay more in taxes and that Bush-era tax cuts for top earners should be allowed to expire at the end of December. “If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week With Christiane Amanpour” that is scheduled to air on Nov. 28. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better […]
WORTH REPEATING: Was Last Week’s Epic Stock Dive The Sound Of Wall Street Extorting Congress?
ALTER NET: Last week, the U.S. stock market suffered the greatest sudden drop in its history, for reasons that nobody on Wall Street can seem to decipher. But of all the explanations being examined—a tech glitch, Greek debt worries and fraud have all been discussed–the most troubling is not being given sufficient attention. Coming on the very day that Congress considered two key financial reforms, the timing of the “flash crash” raises concerns that Wall Street is resorting to extreme tactics in its efforts to intimidate politicians who want to rein in the capital markets casino. Thursday’s market plunge could […]