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Victory for Grassroots as Fast Track Goes Down in Crucial Senate Vote

Deirdre Fulton Common Dreams
"The Fast Track train went off the rails today," cheered Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. "The U.S. Senate vote was supposed to generate momentum for Fast Track in the U.S. House of Representatives, where it's in deep trouble, with almost every House Democrat and a significant bloc of GOP opposing it." Democracy for America warned, "We know the forces pushing the job-killing TPP won't stop here, and they should know, neither will we."

Killing the Future: The Theft of Black Life

Nicholas Powers Truthout
The stages of grief depend on narrative closure, the shoveling of dirt on the casket, eulogizing the dead. But for African-American parents whose children were slain by law enforcement, the stages of grief grind to a halt. The dead cannot be laid to rest because the cop who murdered them is not held accountable, and his violence is condoned.

Yemen’s War Is Redrawing the Middle East’s Fault Lines

Conn Hallinan Dispatches From the Edge
As Saudi Arabia continues its air assault on Yemen’s Houthi insurgents, supporters and opponents of the Riyadh monarchy are reconfiguring the political landscape in a way that’s unlikely to vanish once the fighting is over. The Saudis have constructed what at first glance seems a formidable coalition consisting of the Arab League, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Turkey, and the United States. Except that the “coalition” isn’t as solid as it looks.

Connecticut Has its Share of Exploited Workers

Bill Cummings Stamford Advocate
During the 2014 fiscal year, the Connecticut state labor department received 2,776 complaints over unpaid wages and returned $6.5 million in wages to workers, according to the state labor department.

Fruit May Decrease Risk of Obesity

Alissa Marrapodi Food Product Design
Study published in Journal of Nutrition finds fruit, not veggies, associated with lower risks of obesity.

The Job-Killing-Robot Myth

Dean Baker Los Angeles Times
Are the machines coming for our jobs? Dean Baker argues that we need to get beyond the fear of robots and address the real causes of inequality, low wages and changes in the labor market.

Protect the Public's Right to Free Speech and Free Press

Chelsea Manning The Guardian
Manning’s latest Guardian op-ed: We're citizens, not subjects. We have the right to criticize government without fear. The American public needs more access to what the government is doing in its name. That requires increasing freedom of information and transparency.

Eyewitness to the ‘Fall’ of Vietnam: It Was Not a Bloodbath

Claudia Krich Davis Enterprise
Claudia Krich, longtime Davis resident and retired teacher, attended a Sacramento screening of the documentary “Last Days in Vietnam” and was moved to write this essay. The documentary rekindled memories of the unique experience she and her husband Keith Brinton shared from 1973 until July of 1975,when they co-directed a civilian rehabilitation program and hosted visiting journalists and officials near My Lai. They stayed in Saigon and saw what happened April 30th.

Bosnie - Sarajevo: The Women’s Court in the Former Yugoslavia

Marieme Helie Lucas Secularism Is a Women's Issue
May 7 the Women’s Court on war crimes against women during the war in the 1990ies formally started in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Women have come together from all the corners of the former-Yugoslavia to participate in the Women’s Court in Sarajevo, to demand justice for the crimes committed against them during the wars and the enduring inequalities and suffering that followed.