Featured Article

    CHICANERY: THE WEEK THAT WAS
    by Richard Hébert

    Remember That Was the Week That Was, popularly known as “TW3”? It was a ribald satire on the news that we imported from the BBC in the 1960s. And it’s back. At least it was back last week, in living color.

    Here’s how author Graham McCann described TW3 in his history of BBC comedy, Spike and Co. “Every hypocrisy was highlighted and each contradiction was held up for sardonic inspection. No target was deemed out of bounds: royalty was reviewed by republicans; rival religions were subjected to no-nonsense ‘consumer reports’; pompous priests were symbolically defrocked; corrupt businessmen, closet bigots and chronic plagiarists were exposed; and topical ideologies were treated to singeing critiques. No one was spared.”

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Quick Takes
BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES: Supreme Court Opens Floodgates for Corporate Spending in Elections, SAYS SEIU

Today the US Supreme Court lifted the floodgates and started dismantling century-old restrictions on corporate electoral activity in the name of the free speech rights of corporations meaning if you are a corporate person (aka a CEO or corporate official), you are now free to hit the corporate ATM and spend whatever of your shareholders’ money it takes to elect the candidates of your choice,” said Anna Burger, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer and Chair of the Change to Win labor federation, condemming the United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:


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Voices
BROADBAND ACCESS NEEDED FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS’ ADVANCEMENT
by William Reed

MORE Black Americans need to get “the hook-up”. More of us have to get with the “modernized infrastructure” priorities President Obama classifies as “a national broadband plan” and “new healthcare information technology”. These industries are bellwethers for America’s long-term economic stability and prosperity. Being Internet-enabled provides life-changing benefits. There’s a nationwide push to get the nation connected to affordable high-speed Internet. These new technologies are increasingly allowing Americans of all backgrounds, and walks of life, to access the Internet at a fixed location, or on the go, and for machines to communicate with one another with no human intervention. High-tech as it may sound; broadband is high-speed Internet and data access and can be simply defined as a fast connection to the Internet that is always on.


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The Barras Report
INVESTIGATION-ITIS, PART 2
by jonetta rose barras

After issuing subpoenas and receiving testimony during a series of high profile roundtables in which Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and private business owners were accused of “possible criminal wrongdoing,” D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas last week named Robert P. Trout special counsel for an investigation that began five months ago.


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