Puerto Rico's Colonial Economy

Arthur Macewan Dollars & Sense
Dear Dr. Dollar: It seems like Puerto Rico’s economic and financial mess came out of nowhere. Until recently, there wasn’t much about Puerto Rico in the press, but what there was seemed to portray things as fine, with a generous amount of funds going to the island from Washington. Sometimes, Puerto Rico was held up as a model for economic development. So where did the current mess come from? —Janet Sands, Chicago, Ill.

Jeffco Voters Recall Three Conservative School Board Members

John Tomasic Colorado Statesman
Jefferson County school board politics have made headlines across the state and the nation for nearly two years. Pundits called the election Tuesday a political “proxy war” over larger right-left economic and cultural issues, a key battle for the future of public education, a warm up for the 2016 presidential election year in a bellwether county in a crucial swing state.

Keystone XL Victory !

May Boeve, 350.org Executive Director 350.org
Just a few years ago, insiders and experts wrote us off and assured the world Keystone XL would be built by the end of 2011. Together, ranchers, tribal nations and everyday people beat this project back, reminding the world that Big Oil isn't invincible.

The Mesa Verde Mystery

Seven centuries ago, an entire society performed one of the greatest vanishing acts in human history when they fled their homes in the American Southwest. Archaeologists are trying to work out why they left.

The Indonesian Massacre: What Did the U.S. Know?

Margaret Scott The New York Review of Books
President Obama welcomed Indonesian President Joko Widodo to the White House last week, 50 years after the U.S. backed military coup that resulted in the killings of hundreds of thousands of suspected Indonesian Communists and just weeks after the CIA’s declassification of intelligence documents offers an opportunity to revisit the U.S role in those murderous events. But neither president appears ready to probe further one of the worst massacres since World War II.

Friday Nite Videos -- November 6, 2015

Portside
The Ferguson Effect: It's Hard Out There for a Cop. How the Keystone Fight Was Won. Movie: This Changes Everything. The Mesa Verde Mystery. Sanders’ Strength? Millennials Back Socialism.

How the Keystone Fight Was Won

President Obama's rejection of the Keystone pipeline is the culmination of years of organizing and mobilization. Time to take a moment to celebrate a victory and draw lessons about how victories are won. 

Movie: This Changes Everything

Directed by journalist and filmmaker Avi Lewis (The Take) and produced in conjunction with Naomi Klein's bestselling book of the same name, this urgent dispatch on climate change contends that the greatest crisis we have ever faced also offers us the opportunity to address and correct the inhumane systems that have created it.