To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.

×
      LATEST NEWSOPINIONCLIMATEECONOMY POLITICS RIGHTS & JUSTICEWAR & PEACE
      LATEST NEWS
      OPINION

      michelle obama

      Barack Obama Is Going After Old Men. His Real Target Is Bernie Sanders

      Barack Obama Is Going After Old Men. His Real Target Is Bernie Sanders

      Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who consistently scares the political establishment, and the Obamas can’t stop themselves from showing whose side they’re on.

      Jessa Crispin
      Dec 16, 2019

      While you won't see former president Barack Obama appearing at any town halls or any public events as the Democrats seek to oust Donald Trump from the White House, you can, if you can afford it, see him in a series of rooms - ballrooms, conference rooms, small theaters - talking to donors about what he thinks everyone else is doing wrong. His exasperation has found several targets at these private events, from the young activists he accused of just being mad online to the old white men running for office he accused of "not getting out of the way".

      At this latest event in Singapore, Obama announced that women were "indisputably" better leaders than men. If the whole world was run by women, Obama speculated, "you would see a significant improvement across the board on ... living standards and outcomes."

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      Caster Semenya Is Being Forced to Alter her Body to Make Slower Runners Feel Secure in Their Womanhood

      Caster Semenya Is Being Forced to Alter her Body to Make Slower Runners Feel Secure in Their Womanhood

      The courts decided that discriminating against some women is required for athletic competitions to be “fair” to other women

      Chase Strangio
      May 03, 2019

      Discrimination against some women is "necessary" to protect other women, according to the Court of Arbitration for Sport's ruling in the Caster Semenya case.

      The CAS' decision comes in a challenge to the International Association of Athletics Federations' regulations for athletes with differences of sex development brought by Semenya, the Black South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of cisgender women. The regulations that Semenya challenged would require her to artificially suppress her hormone levels in order to continue to compete in women's events. In the executive summary of the still-confidential full decision, the court explained that the "regulations are discriminatory but that ... such discrimination is a necessary."

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      Money Talks, Big Time

      Money Talks, Big Time

      1% politics and the scandals of a new gilded age

      Rajan Menon
      Apr 02, 2019

      Despair about the state of our politics pervades the political spectrum, from left to right. One source of it, the narrative of fairness offered in basic civics textbooks -- we all have an equal opportunity to succeed if we work hard and play by the rules; citizens can truly shape our politics -- no longer rings true to most Americans. Recent surveys indicate that substantial numbers of them believe that the economy and political system are both rigged. They also think that money has an outsized influence on politics. Ninety percent of Democrats hold this view, but so do 80% of Republicans. And careful studies confirm what the public believes.

      None of this should be surprising given the stark economic inequality that now marks our society. The richest 1% of American households currently account for 40% of the country's wealth, more than the bottom 90% of families possess. Worse yet, the top 0.1% has cornered about 20% of it, up from 7% in the mid-1970s. By contrast, the share of the bottom 90% has since then fallen from 35% to 25%. To put such figures in a personal light, in 2017, three men -- Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates -- possessed more wealth ($248.5 billion) than the bottom 50% of Americans.

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
      Quality journalism. Progressive values. Direct to your inbox.
      Follow Us
      Most Popular

      'Shocking and Immoral': Report Details Private Equity's Stranglehold on US Healthcare

      Warren Demands Probe Into Bank Failures, Urges Biden to Fire Powell

      East Palestine Soil Contains Dioxin Levels Hundreds of Times Over Cancer Risk Threshold

      Reckless Capitalist Banks Rescued by Government Socialism – Again!

      It's Clear the GOP Is a Party of Death, Not Life

      'Beautiful': Minnesota Becomes 4th State to Provide Free School Meals to All Kids

      'Never Seen Anything Like This': US Librarians Report Book Bans Hit Record High in 2022

      Beware This Libertarian Oligarch's Ecological Utopia in Texas

      Bailing Out the Undeserving Rich—Again

      Fears of Monarch Butterfly Extinction as Numbers Plummet 22% in Annual Count

      SUPPORT OUR WORK.
      We are independent, non-profit, advertising-free and 100%
      reader supported.