Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies the Wrong Way Could End Up Hurting the Poor

Among progressives concerned about climate change, few issues provoke as much anger as the knowledge that governments continue to subsidize fossil fuels. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2017 these subsidies totaled $5.2 trillion annually. Don’t governments realize that fossil fuels are cooking the planet? The scientific community says we are in a desperate race against time, but the coal, oil, and gas companies apparently still have their noses deeply in the public trough. Most policy elites think fossil fuel subsidies should go. A decade ago, Group of Twenty (G20) leaders committed to “rationalize and phase out” government support...

Read More

Thousands Protest in London Against Assange Extradition Before Start of Hearing

The extradition hearing to decide whether to send Julian Assange to the United States to be tried for publishing classified military documents on Wikileaks is expected to finally begin on Monday in London. Assange is charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act, involving receipt, obtaining and disclosing national security information. He has also been charged with one count of conspiracy to assist Chelsea Manning to crack a US Department of Defense password to enable her to access classified information. Assange has been in Belmarsh prison since his arrest in April 2019. He had been in solitary confinement in a prison...

Read More

New Financial Aid Scheme Requires Students to Forfeit Future Income to Investors

One day in 2017, Lauren Neuwirth sank into a chair in her university’s financial aid office feeling out of options. She was finishing her second year at Purdue University in northwest Indiana, a school she’d chosen for its top-ranked engineering program. Neuwirth, who grew up near Milwaukee, was working two jobs to cover her living expenses and quickly running through the money her mother had set aside for college. Federal student loans only covered some of Purdue’s pricey out-of-state tuition. She worried that to remain in school she’d have to take out expensive private loans or join the Army. But...

Read More

Puerto Rico’s Uprisings Have Empowered a New Leadership Among the Oppressed

The U.S. federal government’s disastrous response to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria illustrates a longstanding history of an exploitative domestic policy on the island. Recent earthquakes have not only rocked Puerto Rico’s infrastructure but have emphasized the United States’s negligence of its own citizens. Journalist and Columbia University professor, Ed Morales, describes Puerto Rico as the “symbol of marginalized communities all over the U.S. and the world.” He joins activist and scholar Rosa Clemente to discuss the personal and political implications of the island’s ongoing debt crisis, recovery efforts, and an intersectional movement that challenges the political establishment. Laura Flanders:...